


Bitchings at Birkbeck (No, you can't have a razor.)

by esotericvanity



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Arguing, Bullying, But Still Clinical and Vaguely Terrifying, Gay Jokes, Gen, I'm Having Fun Don't Whine, Irene and Sherlock Friendship, John Plays Rugby, M/M, Mental Masochism, Physical Abuse, Protective John, Roommates, Sherlock is a Brat, Sherlock's a Bit of a Geek, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Teenlock, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:18:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8727082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esotericvanity/pseuds/esotericvanity
Summary: Yet here he is, stuck in Uni, promptly going to waste away for four years and quite possibly contract stupidity—the disease is relatively rare in his blood line but he’s taking no chances-- all because he’s not capable of making realistic decisions. So here he lies, in his dorm room shower and counting Aspergillus mold spots (Aspergillius, causation of many a sever lung infection, he muses bitterly, inhaling another lungful of soothing poison and tilting his nose to the ceiling) on the tiny, yellowing ceiling—no longer the pristine white the university prided its students for being akin to in colour—and determining how long it’ll have to fester until maintenance gives a shit and cleans it after his pretty-boy rugby roommate alerts them of the health hazard.





	1. I believe the Americano saying goes: "Can't touch this."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mssmithlove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mssmithlove/gifts), [SailorChibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/gifts), [Linpatootie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linpatootie/gifts), [BeautifulFiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction/gifts).



It feels so good to deny, Sherlock marvels one day. To deny what they hold so dear. What they yearn to control, to stifle. He’s no masochist, he’d just rather die screaming while conformity implodes in itself before his obstinacy, he swears, a mocking titter duly repressed behind his cigarette and sharp angles. They want to control him, his speed, his brilliance, his body, his experience, all of him. Just beyond their boredom-induced, razor-filed fingertips, manicured to pitiful perfection. He’s no stranger to the hungry glint in their sagging eyes. Something about his appearance must scream “White-collar me!” given the way their eyes brighten the second he enters the room.

 

They just wait. Waiting to dig into his dark suit, ironed with utmost finesse, to keep him there. Work him till they see bone, then turn a blind eye and keep working him anyway, maybe work him harder—put the guy out of his misery for god’s sake. Dull-eyed and young. Such a shame, they would murmur to one another when he would spiral into depression—debt circling him like vultures, marriage failed, and his darling's shoulder-biters bitter. He was such a hard worker.

 

But he’s insane, you see? He’s a machine, constantly working. Working until he sees red, until his head aches and he needs to schedule prospective aspirins for later hours in hopes of lasting the rest of the day. He does it. For him and him only, he can’t stop if he wants to. Perhaps that’s why he refuses to share, handing over something so valuable and seemingly limitless to greedy hands—they could wring him dry, possibly. If they squeezed him at just the right angle, holding him there with a stiff, light shake before he could throw in the towel. He knows how they wish to commandeer his gears, trying to rearrange technology so advanced it would make their little permed and bald heads spin right off. It’s comical and almost makes him want to try. There’s another catch though, no one can. Statistic and probability concepts dictate they never will. Not even him.

 

Regardless of their fantasies, it’s entertaining to taunt them and see their sweet-sixty faces flush rosy red at his, offensive and immoral at times, flee. And why? Ah, of course. They wish to condemn him to the life they’d sold their life to. It’s only fair he supposed, attempting to create a brief persona weaved with their coding and psychology.

 

It imploded intermediately. Damn it. _Yes, only fair_ , they’d agree, skin a crinkly paper and limbs weak as they reverently leafed through 72’s yearbook, remembering the sodding line at the office to publish their prides, joys, and hellions on an unpleasantly stuffy summer's day. Crushing regret for missing a shot at something more underneath their overworked, bony thumbs like the pest it is. And inevitably was.

 

He wants to soar, scoffing at the very prospect all the while. Leap off Lady Liberty, crash headfirst into the Thames, feel the wind bite his nose and flick his hair, and do it all again. Until he can’t take the fall anymore. Not as if he expects to get that far. Fully expecting to leave an unrecognizable, spongy cadaver floating below London’s Tower Bridge at 33. Mycroft would choke to death during the reading of his will, poor Mycroft had always been a stress-eater—he’d put a great deal of thought into it after all, would be a shame if they interrupted it mid-clever, Putin and smuggled Sugar Daddy candy and Donald Trump reference. America deserved a proper farewell too.

 

Indulgent self-destruction. Absurdism. Insanity. What a waste. And that’s all it is. Living and being alive appear to be two different things in the eyes of realist and a sociopath. Who knew? He does—surprise, surprise-- and he intends to make the most of his next seventeen years. And not by giving in to getting takeout or shagging a perfect stranger whenever he feels particularly aware of how dead he is inside. Nor every day.

 

Escaping the norm is merely a small victory, rather effortless on his part—practically handed to him on a silver platter, and when he refused said platter, it was slammed in his face. Hairline maxilla fractures were a dream--a blurry peer through swollen eyelids. It will never be enough, he doesn’t what it is but he wants to. To try. Is it worth it? If so then why? Probably isn’t but why ever not? So he’ll claw his way up, painful, smooth and slow at times. Or rushed, aimlessly excited and vaguely desperate at others. He’ll make a tower. He’ll build off of their Huggies stepping stool and make Empire State building architects cry at its sheer, palpable being.

 

Just for kicks. To make them ache for it. A small part of him will revel in being better (more so than usual he rationalizes), anything less would be unacceptable. He doesn’t know why that is and he knows why quite well.

 

Yet here he is, stuck in Uni, promptly going to waste away for four years and quite possibly contract stupidity—the disease is relatively rare in his blood line but he’s taking no chances-- all because he’s not capable of making realistic decisions. So here he lies, in his dorm room shower and counting Aspergillus mold spots (Aspergillus, causation of many a severe lung infection, he muses bitterly, inhaling another lungful of soothing poison and tilting his nose to the ceiling) on the tiny, yellowing ceiling—no longer the pristine white the university prided its students for being akin to in colour—and determining how long it’ll have to fester until maintenance gives a shit and cleans it after his pretty-boy rugby roommate alerts them of the health hazard.

 

Faux-concern or adamant, self-inflicted conditioning into the good little doctor he’s going to be. Must be hard. John would probably attempt to condescend him for their age difference (it wasn’t his fault he ranked at AP, not completely), under the guise of him still being his elder—maybe out of jealously--making the reality of his situation all that much worse. Telling from the classes listed for his roommate’s in the Birkbeck’s online records, John was above average but painfully average all the same. Blond, bright-eyed and cookie-eating, dream-shitting grin. He wondered for a moment, as his eyes phantom-stung at the memory of the pearly whites glaring back at him. Would John’s smile remain vivid when he received his diploma on stage, in spite of a bullet to the leg or knife to the shoulder? How ecstatic would he be? Ecstatic enough to be numb, that happened right? Going into shock? Like fainting girlfriends at proposals.

 

A true minor-mediocre prodigy if he ever knew one, a boy you could pin your hopes on no doubt. No longer a Captain America-idolizing thumb-sucker missing their two front teeth, but now an appallingly righteous, modern version with less blue-spandex. He sniffed at the thought, smelling sulfur, nicotine, and artificial lemon cleaner and crossed his legs. He’s still going to get punched in the face. No one can resist. Can’t wait, maybe he’ll get his own dorm. He could piss any possible and upcoming roommates off and get beaten until the headmaster gives up and leaves him be. He’d take the basement. Or he could pretend they’re dead and keep his strangely attractive face intact. Plus, the bathroom and closet weren’t a bad touch…

 

Point being, Birkbeck needed a stronger firewall. Preferably one they hadn’t just downloaded and ceased customizing to their system out of sloth. Maybe they were just modest. He wouldn’t blame them for assuming no one wanted to hack their steadily thickening cesspool of mediocre maggots. Still, to care was plainly principle. And just might keep out amateurs. Might. McAfee was piteous at the best of times, truly.

 

Sherlock shifts his crossed arms cradling his head—stained, greying, penny-sized, square tiles scraping his elbows, the skin indented, red and raw from the elongated pressure, and hisses out wasted carbon dioxide mingled with smoke  from between his teeth, the soft sound ringing shrill like a stifled train engine to his ears and his ears only.

 

Neat.

 

 

 

 --

 

 

 

 

The first time he meets John, he’s officially sure that his roommate has either dropped out last minute, been delayed by a family issue or something or other, or croaked. He happy dances, and almost considers using the other half of the room now, suddenly having someone burst in on his methodic madness would be embarrassing. So Sherlock has taken the liberty of keeping John’s side pure of his organized chaos.

 

Having second thoughts though… it would take a while to assign another student to his room, courtesy of Mycroft’s controlling nature and need to snoop…plus, Sherlock needed somewhere to put his paraphernalia on heterogeneous mixtures. Anderson was being astoundingly obnoxious as of recent and he had a little plan for his Twix bar next lunch period.

 

So you can imagine his surprise when he’s tapped on the shoulder, after class hours no less, and the world having previously fallen on deaf ears from the earplugs he’d dug into his canals. The Hearse song’s intro was beginning to leak through.

 

Haha, ‘leak’.

 

Sherlock plucks a fuchsia pink earplug from his ear—tolerating the bright color had been a sacrifice on his part, Philip was the most resilient brand on the market right now--, the other remaining in, and continues staring down at his dorm-work, reluctant form still seated on the hardwood floor, the papery mess spread around him enough to make any tree-lover cry. How had John managed to reach his shoulder without rustling a paper? Moreover, John isn’t worth both plugs being removed at the moment. Or ever. Sherlock was just going to pretend he was dead for the rest of his stay. Earplugs would assist this endeavor tremendously.

 

Sherlock hums in question—might as well get introductions over with--, still scrawling up tedious trig. Yes ABC is a right angle at A, yes ABD and ABC apply to Pythagora’s theorem, yes he’s Birkbeck’s mathematical whore for the next four years. What does he get? X equating AC and AD and a triangle so aesthetically displeasing it makes his skin crawl.

 

“Uh, hi.” John begins, sounding put off by his immediate disregard. And stay off, would you? “My name’s John.”

 

“I know.” Sherlock replies, the instinctual urge to spill John’s indubitably slimy guts out to him rearing its head. He wants to smack himself for a moment, because that’s the _last_ thing he wants to do. But instead of indulging in masochism and risking seeming any stranger, he settles for scratching the back of his head with his pencil. “Uh, I mean I read your file.” He assures John quickly, still staring down. “McAfee is pitiful, honestly.” Sherlock adds with a mumble, feeling the tips of his ears burn.

 

He could also feel John’s raised brow burn into the back of his University sweater, the black logo emblazoning the front a stark contrast to the soft, grey cotton. He hated bright colors, it was no shock that he nearly gagged at the neon all Birkbeck students wore (probably to avoid getting hit by fellow drunken students, bud-light in one hand, steering wheel in the other, then tragedy on your resume). _The colours burned his peripherals_ \-- so it was a joy to find this one, he’d had enough of patrol questioning his residency due to his younger age. Sherlock bought five. Now, if only John would _stop trying to singe holes into it with his eyes._

 

“You hacked the schools firewall to read my file?” John didn’t sound weirded out, just vaguely surprised.

 

It wouldn’t last. Think fast. How do you _not_ piss off a seemingly decent person, of whom is going to share the same 5 feet of space with you for the entirety of the next four years?

 

“Obviously, how else?” Flawless. Just the right tint of fuck-off and he’s going to die by next month, can’t wait.

 

“Stalking?” John prompts, seeming amused at his rhetorical act. What the—

 

“Much too busy. Try again.” –hell?

 

“Psychic?” John asks again, the sound of a suitcase hitting the bare mattress makes a thump. And for a moment, Sherlock considers punching John for his reply, getting himself expelled instead, that’s actually not an awful idea.

 

In lieu of getting his scrawny form retaliated against or bloodied, he answers, “Something like that.” Still not worth the expulsion. And what would a few diplomas hurt? He’s not a coward, he has common sense. And provoking an athlete in his willowy three-days-awake-and-going-down state would be plain cruel.

 

A disbelieving scoff. “Oh, as if.” Just the right amount of cynicism and sass. Sherlock suddenly wants to kiss him. Mindless of how John’s suitcase zipper freezes mid-journey from its twin in alarm at his own comment. But Sherlock just removes his other earphone. Edith Piaf wasn’t helping the urge.

 

Sherlock feels an unfamiliar smirk twitch his features. “Good to know.” He murmurs and scratches out another answer with the lotto pencil he stole from Lestrade’s pencil-cup.

 

“I don’t believe I caught your name.” John pipes up after a while. Having finished unpacking, all set and ready to suffer the next 1,460 days and get maudlin and pissed at how the miniature family-portraits on his desktop keep blurring before his teary eyes, or maybe it would be myopia, were his eyes falling out? John soon wouldn’t know, aspiring doctor or not.

 

Sherlock clears his throat quietly and swallows, after trying to answer and making a rather squeaky, emasculating sound instead. “The name’s _Sherlock_.” He announces mockingly grand and shimmies his suddenly-air-born hands in the air at the title, feeling rather foolish at his failed attempt at slang, then snaps his hands down. Because he did not do _jazz hands_ he was a _Holmes_.

 

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He subsequently smoothens politely, calling back on his inner-clinical. “I look forward to our rooming this year.”

 

It wasn’t an utter lie either, and wasn’t that a surprise. But not an entirely unpleasant one. Still not taking the chance. Hopefully he wouldn’t see John too often due to their schedules, they could keep this mutual I-don’t-hate-you vibe up. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ rings true in some cases. Even if Sherlock loathes the saying, he’d learn to live by it for this one thing. Mycroft had handled this situation well enough. His overbearing nature had its perks. All he had to do was play dead.

 

He hears John smother a small cough. “Ah, likewise?” John agrees hesitantly. Sherlock mustn’t have sounded as accommodating as he first thought. “How old are you anyways?”

 

Sherlock blew out a breath, making his bangs float. “Do I really look that young? You haven’t even seen my face.” And why would John suddenly care for his specifics? Especially something so random? He hadn’t even gotten a good look at Sherlock’s face, nor Sherlock of him—save for his file. Ah, could he have been told of Sherlock’s attitude prior to--

 

A nervous chuckle. “No reason—“

 

“The headmaster.” Grain, the sod.

 

“How did you—“

 

Sherlock waves away the short-lived question like the pest it is, and inevitably will be. “Obvious, he’s been an overbearing father-hen ever since his divorce to compensate for the separation of his child. Tragic, he would’ve done swell with the skills he possesses, swell for _his infant_. Do well and don’t heed him, if you insist on walking on eggshells I'll be forced to ensure you step on the literal metaphor every morning.” Lestrade wouldn’t need to heed John either.

 

Finally completing three pages of pointless preliminary tests to evaluate his Advanced Placement being a right lie or not, he flips the red, scrawl-covered binder shut with a satisfying snap, they’d later appoint him ahead of any and all students accompanying him to his lectures. No, ‘Ignoring him to his lectures’ fits the bill better. Sherlock turns around, uncurling his legs from their Indian position as he goes, and bends his knees up so his elbows can rest on them.

 

Oh, his back aches from the crouched position he’d held it in for hours. Sherlock groans and rubs at it, finally looking up at John in the real.

 

John smiles and it doesn’t make his eyes hurt. “Hello.”

 

Clean shaven, showered, hair sprayed down, not gelled. Good, two gays in a room didn’t look too good. (Not that Sherlock looked gay or anything of the sort, absurd.) Planned on arriving today, wasn’t in a rush for his stress lines were nonexistent and his posture relaxed. Pressed button-down and blue, woolen jumper washed with softener three days or so prior to his arrival, not a speck of lint. So, planned outfit and cleaned shoes, clearly looking forward to his enrollment after managing to get in. Had he not seen his report cards explicitly stating him above average? Of course he’d get in, the dumbass. John appears more mature than most, his patience speaks volumes, he even wears a belt. Smells of cologne strong enough to make him want to dig his face into John’s fuzzy midsection. Sodding Chanel, it always got him. Also smells of tea and bread, perhaps he’d paid his mother a farewell and had lunch, would explain his delayed arrival today. Lipstick smudge on the bottom left corner of his sweater where John had wiped a kiss off his cheek with the material implied as much. Couldn’t be a girlfriend, not a picture or memoir of her in sight.

 

Sherlock frowns up at him in confusion. “I believe we’ve already done this.”

 

John just nods, smile still in place and sits down on his quilted cot, the striped, sky-blue and indigo blanket having been knitted by hand, not methodical, prim machine. His jumper wasn’t hand-knit either. Perhaps the jumper John now wore had acted as a clone of the gift his mother made for him, she could have told him she wanted him to wear it on his first day. And John, with his burly rugby hands, had managed to ruin the sentimental gift. He’d need to work on steadying them for his aspired profession. Perhaps rugby wasn’t the stupidest of hobbies, a steady grip was essential. Undoubtedly helping him keep his cool when the adrenaline hit.

 

John shrugged and wringed his fingers, the callouses typical of his preferred sport, must’ve gotten the ball quite often in high-school. But they hadn’t faded, practices with his friends on weekends? Did they join the same university too? “What’s the harm in one more time?” _Waste of time_ , Sherlock wants to drone, but holds his tongue. “You never told me your age though.”

 

“192 months.”

 

John squints at the answer, then purses his lips _. Yeah, think harder._ Sherlock inwardly jeers.

 

Then a smirk, John’s eyebrows rise in pleasant surprise.

 

_Error 402._

 

John spoke a split-second later. “Your seventeenth birthday’s in three weeks then.”

 

Sherlock immediately felt himself brighten. Not because he’d be officially one year closer to his demise, but because John could do simple math! Some cynical part of him knew he shouldn’t have been as excited by the revelation as he was. But the ability came with other admirable attributes. So, yes. Notable perk, it was. Perhaps some skeletal wraith of amity could blind John’s fist from its target.

 

“Correct, and might I just say how pleased I am at your calculation skills and their timeframe.”

 

John just chuckles and toes off his loafers, “You wouldn’t be the first.” And lays back onto the cot, making the ancient bedframe creak beneath the pressure. Then closes his eyes, folding his arms beneath his head with a sigh.

 

Taking the unspoken hint, Sherlock leaves John to rest, and puts his headphones back in. Only after uncurling the flimsy rubber-coated wire from his curls. And cranks up Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor, for he was feeling particularly bold, and slips his arms through the hoodie that had previously been hanging off the peeling door’s hinge. It must have fallen when John entered. Normally, he’d wear his beloved woolen trench-coat over one of his suits, but he held no ill-conceived notion of the surrounding area. In short, he isn’t daft enough to prance around a lions den in a meat suit.

 

“Where’re you headed?”

 

Sherlock blinks at the interruption, and pauses zipping up his hoodie. Still facing the door. “To see a man about a dog.” Sherlock lightly shakes off his surprise and hauls his book-bag over his shoulder.

 

John hums in contemplation, a light little sound strange and alien to the usually still atmosphere. But pleasing in its unfamiliar tenor, like a fine tune open to rise and dip for melodies beyond imagination. And evincing of a blessedly calm semester since the boy wouldn't sound like a yowling cat and Sherlock needn't worry about jail time for throwing shoes. “I could’ve _sworn_ animals weren’t allowed at Birkbeck.”

 

“They are, they’re even given their own dorms.” _You appear to be decent though_. He observes but doesn’t add. And closes the door behind him, muting John’s quiet laughter. For now.

 

Now, off to break into the library. He needed the 10th edition of Art Through The Ages, an electric pencil sharpener, and a snickers bar. Because he’s not at his brightest when he’s starving to death _._


	2. Google, Hell Hounds and Rescue Me Like One of Your French Girls

He’s crouched over his textbook, memorizing the time period in which a veristic imagine of marble mimicking some Roman politician from Otricoli had been sculpted. When suddenly a self-proclaimed bestfriend slams his textbook closed, nearly crushing his fingers in the act. Thank god his reflexes remained sharp throughout sleep deprivation. He’d be dead by now.

 

Sherlock peers up, makes an offended ‘mmph’ over his snickers bar, and does a helpless sort of ‘why’ gesture. Sherlock hadn’t even heard her coming—oh yeah headphones.

 

Irene just grins, ruby lips revealing sharp canines. Looking every bit the bitch she is. “How come I always find you hiding away like a little hermit?“

 

Sherlock takes a bite of his half-eaten chocolate bar and plucks out his earphones with a poorly repressed sigh, his eyes steady on his stalker. It seems his chances to get farther ahead in his studies grew dimmer with every breath the psychotic vixen took.  “Has it not occurred to you that hermits are hermits for a reason?”

 

Adler hums and taps her pale chin. Then flicks a finger up, indicating she’s found some ridiculous solution.

 

“I’ll Google it.”

 

Sherlock felt his eyes grow in size “Oh, would you please not—“

 

But she had already taken out her pristine american IPhone, she’d won it in some inane giveaway on YouTube. It wasn’t even a beauty giveaway, and she followed Bethany Mota. Her thumbs whip across the screen in practiced motion, not a typo in sight. Sherlock idly wonders if Irene could do it with her eyes closed.

 

“’Give me space and get out of my face!’” Irene says, grandly voicing the retarded motto some mediocre twat had probably conjured up over a blunt after their ‘hermit’ crush told them to stop stalking them on social media. “That’s the motto of a very common creature nowadays—the ‘Urban Hermit’. They don’t want to be bothered by others and their self-manifestations.”

 

Sherlock clears his throat and looks up at her pointedly. She ignores him and continues. “’How did they get this way?’”

 

“Adler _would you please_ —“

 

“ It all starts when they’re first told they aren’t _wuved_.”

 

“Really, Irene _—“_

_“_ _And suddenly_ , they become the object of all their mother’s ills and woes. All because of her unmet dependency needs and an accompanying violent resentment of her child for having any needs themselves.” She finishes, heedless and mockingly distraught. “ _Oh, baby.”_ She starts sympathetically and reaches out to him. “ _I’d make up for all those years of poisonous pedagogy, just give me a chance_.”

 

“Does necrophilia arouse you?” He questions, because it’s a sound one, leaning away from her red-tipped reach. “Because that’s the only way I’d ever let you touch me, with a 900 foot pole.”

 

Adler huffs in fake disappointment and sits across from him. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re as straight as your hair.”

 

“Oh hush.” Sherlock breathes out, done. And flips his book back his last page. Lucky him, he’d learned to fold the corners after every page he turned, for reasons such as  Irene Adler, in all her meddling, 18+ glory. One day he’s imploring a change of perspective from the professor for his appalling signature line ‘ _Just a theory.’_ , the next he’s hunted down and stalked by the woman, as the students had taken to calling her. If they didn’t hate him then, they sure as hell did now.

 

“Why are you here?” He asks, despite already knowing why.

 

“I got a boyfriend.”

 

Sherlock huffs a sudden laugh and flips to page 402. The Sanctuary of Hercules housed another hideous, unknown Roman General, marvelous. Was he nicknamed toothless in his day? “And London’s falling. Why are you here?”

 

“Mary’s out for the weekend,” Irene affirms knowingly. “I thought I’d take advantage of the deserted hour and invite you over for The Big Bang Theory marathon.” She finally comes clean and clicks her nail on the plastic folding table repetitively.

 

He freezes. “There’s a marathon?”

 

“Affirmative.”

 

Sherlock gathers his back pack, writing utensils and an electric sharpener for some reason, before he’s even aware he’s taken another breath. “Why didn’t you inform me earlier?” He asks, just a tinge hysteric and all around irritated.

 

“Thought you knew, but here you were, blocking my path to boredom and sulking with a stick in your mouth. We all have our methods of compensation but isn’t this taking it a little far?”

 

Ignoring the innuendo, he gently but urgently tugs her up by her underarms. Her signature, red bomber-jacket always making a point of matching her red lipstick, it felt like touching silk. I he didn’t know any better he’d label her a snob. “Come on.” Sherlock needlessly coaxes her.

 

Irene rises and presses against him, his arm squished between her breasts as she steers them towards the girls ward. “Mmm,” She unnecessarily purrs. “I like them rough.”

 

“Oh, hush you.” Sherlock feels his cheeks heat and quiets her, quickening their pace to the exiting pneumatic doors and into the main building. He sniffs at the biting November air when they exit the library and cross into the opposing structure. Feeling his shoulders finally loosen and mind.

 

He unconsciously reaches up to squeeze the hand on his arm in silent thanks, before catching himself with a frown. But she squeezes right back as he recoils, lowers it, and keeps it there. Holding tight as she leads the ways through shadowed corridors in a brave trek, footsteps and admonished titters quiet in their exciting endeavor to avoid the hall’s windows as the sheer light of stars and streetlights attempt to reveal them to sparse, passing security.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“Wake up everybody. No more sleepin’ in bed. No more backwards thinkin’, time for thinkin’ ahead.”_

Sherlock wakes up with a groan, and his face smushed into a rather voluptuous pillow, and promptly snuggles closer. Set on staying here for the rest of his life. If only that incessant singing would cease.

 

Staying still, he dozily contemplates possible mechanisms of murdering John Legend without moving…until the pillow starts trembling with repressed laughter. “Comfy?”

 

A bullet would envy the speed at which he flew off the sofa.

 

Fantastic, now he’d bruised his right flank, well, more so than it had been to begin with. He slipped in the shower a few days ago, all thanks to Irish Green, which was strange. He hadn’t even been taking a shower yet, Sherlock hadn’t even bought soap.

 

Ignoring the gradually awkwarding silence. _Awkwarding was not a word, compose yourself._ A voice sounding akin in tone to Mycroft’s berated him, Sherlock tells it to suck a low-fat egg. “How can you stand such infernal vocals?” He asks from his crestfallen position on the floor.

 

Irene props herself up on her elbows to look down at him, looking ridiculously attractive despite she’s just woken up. The damp orange dawn shining rays through the dorm window and onto her features, accentuating her sharp cheekbones and making her blue irises glow.

 

Wait-- _sunlight_?

 

“It’s motivational.” She defends, moronically lax.

 

“It’s an _atrocity_.” He corrects her, histrionic, and suddenly hopping on one leg as he attempts to slip his other one into his skinny jeans. He glares at the yowling alarm clock. 5: 23 am.  Maybe if he rushed he could get back to his dorm before patrol performed their morning rounds and found him in exiting the girls ward. He couldn’t afford another run-in with the headmaster, lest they call _his brother_ of all things.

 

“ _Why didn’t you wake me up_?” He shouts at her, voice a shrill whisper. He pulls his Uni sweatshirt over his head and pats it down his torso, taking in the mess of soda cans and Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream boxes littering the floor and coffee table. He hadn’t eaten in two days to elongate his foci, so the sight wasn’t terribly shocking. She always did pamper him, leaving him wary and convinced she were set on offing him someday. Or he was just her boy-toy who happened to be her near-intellectual equal. One of the diminutive parse reasons he allowed her fickle drop-ins every few months or so.

 

“I was dreaming of snogging Beyonce.” Irene sighs in contentment. “It was simply _obscene_.”

 

Oh for god’s sake. “Control your raging ovaries for the time being, would you? If I don’t find a way to get back to the men’s ward before six I’ll be counting brother’s back flabs while he defends my supposed play-boy deviance _.”_

Irene nods grimly. “And my admirers would kill you.”

 

“As would the _entire_ university’s occupancy.”

 

“Same thing,” She waves him off arrogantly and buries her head beneath her creamy pastel pillow. “Now go away, Beyonce awaits me on the Eiffel Tower sheathed in bare moonlight.”

 

“I hope Napoleon scalps you both.” Sherlock hisses to the instantly silent bundle of Star Wars blankets and roughly tugs on his dark hoodie.

 

Okay, what now. Find a way. Find a way. Find a way. His eyes shift around the cluttered 24x15 room in panic. Beneath the authentic calendar vividly printed with a delicately painted Chinese peacock lays an ironic metaphor of the bird’s second syllable. He pauses in shrill thought at the utter disregard required to toss such an intimate item in plain sight, given the monochrome fact it simply wasn’t Adler’s. And finds himself fearing for men as a rare whole. This ploy may take a moment.

 

 

\---

 

 

Sherlock blows out a breath and frowns at his reflection in the vanity mirror. The game is on.

 

Tugging his hood over his eyes after applying a shade of red lipstick dark enough to make hypochondriacs scream, and combing his bedhead over as much of his face he could obscure without risking running into a wall. Sherlock dogmatically blesses his lack of need to shave, and exits the dorm. Flipping off Irene as he goes to steady himself.

 

“Oh, good morning.” A feminine voice greets behind him the very fucking instant he closes the door. He finds a new hatred for his baritone, one he never thought he’d have.

 

Sherlock clears his throat and recalls how frogs sound when you squeeze them. And answers with a highly pitched ‘mhm’. He speed-walks away, then forces himself to slow as to wane any suspicion. Fighting the urge to scurry down the corridor and scream like a little girl all the same. Or maybe that’s _exactly_ what he needs to do.

 

He continues his mortifying trek, and is wholly unprepared for the girl deciding to follow him.

 

“Sherlock?” the little voice gasps.

 

What in the ever-loving Lucifer’s son? He knew he had a few anatomy-admirers but this was ludicrous. Makes him shudder a bit, how closely had they watched him to be able to recognize him by half of his face, with lipstick on of all things?

 

Sherlock just thinks about giggling infants unaware they’re suffocating on helium as he speaks.

 

“ _Non, c’est Shezza_.” Sherlock tries at French, confused and shy. Nothing new there. And resolutely stares the other way. He’d reached the section of the corridor where the doors sidled to his left while the right half of the hall was open to view the city’s many stubby structures and vendors made small at fist glance by the good distance granted by the university’s pretentious obelisk mounting the acre of catered, crisp green. Where the school’s rugby field broke off remained out of sight and perpendicular to his panicked form. Hopefully Sherlock needn’t have to jump the rail and book it over, just walk there like a sane pedestrian and use hallways for their crafted purpose.

 

The girl doesn’t sound impressed when she gives him a disbelieving ‘uh huh’. He sees the girl silently beckon over the guard with her left hand out of the corner of his eye.

 

Oh, well, if you want to be that way.

 

Gripping the rusted railing a foot from his right, he leaps over it—blessing his slight weight and Irene’s residency on the bottom floor, and sprints alongside the railing in certainties of making it a few yards farther to turn left and into Birkbeck’s maze of sport’s sheds. Kicking up moist dirt as he races down the mowed, thickly-grassed field.

 

“Over there! That’s a bloke!” The girl shrieks behind him, her accusatory squeak of a voice no longer sounding all that desirable.

 

A husky voice soon follows, climbing over the rail and grunting from weight gained by ten too many frozen meals and Oprah shows. “Get back here you brat!”

 

Sherlock keeps up his sprint, feeling a bit like a gazelle, and jumps over a fallen tin garbage can. The paper-thin converse sneakers acting as little more than a sock to cushion the landing, and making his heels ache. No matter, he’d lose the guard in no time at all. Sherlock grinds to a halt, before propelling himself to the right and into a maze of wooden, creaky sheds housing sports equipment. All within five or more feet of each other. Perfect.

 

When Sherlock no longer hears panting or heavy footfalls behind him, he slows down to a jog. Thanking and damning the Adler line for creating Irene, if it weren’t for her he’d have passed out from not eating after his sprint. Then again, if it weren’t for her he also wouldn’t have had to dress in drag to escape angry mousy girls and overweight, perverted guards. He squints at the memory, Adler could handle him.

 

Sherlock pants out a breath and leans his shoulder against a nearby rotting shed. Taking a moment to catch his breath, the frigid air feels like knives to inhale. He really needs to start jogging if he’s going to keep this up. 

 

Then a deep growl reverberates his core. Sherlock’s eyes snap up, stomach sinking impossibly deeper by the nanosecond. Staying perfectly still, he backs away. Already intent on sprinting around the shed behond him and ripping through a creaky maze of vacant hopelessness.

 

Barking sharing likeness to a lions roar echoes in his ears. And he suddenly remembers he’d left his earphones on Irene’s vanity before he taking his book-bag.

 

Today really isn’t his day.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Ripping open another shed-door to block the hell-hound the size of Cujo from reaching him, Sherlock scrambles down another worn, dirt path. Sherlock knows humans can’t outrun dogs, much less a 260 pound behemoth at 30 miles per hour. And so he knocks over three more trash cans, the garbage reeking of students trying to get out of taking their garbage to the chute. Or maybe they were just too hungover to differentiate a garbage disposal and a bloody shed in the middle of a 20 acre field.

 

The hellion roars again, the sound deeper than any sound he remembers hearing.

 

 _Not the time_. He reprimands his deducing nature and dodges over an icy puddle, promptly hearing the dog whine behind him  and slide into the opposing wooden structure to its left.

 

Sherlock runs faster, feeling his lungs tremble and shake with the exertion, and his windpipes drier than the Kalahari desert. All because of the approaching out-door gym. And _monkey bars_. He manages to grab a rotten stick, it having rotten off a nearby oak from the gelid weather, before scaling the metallic structure with enough grace to make his knees ache.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

“Hey, you bloody mutt.” Sherlock coos, waving the wooden stick in the air. The dog blinks, panting.

 

“Do you want this stick?” He asks, jiggling it for emphasis. “Dogs enjoy teething on sticks despite reaching maturity, right? It’s even accumulated a trace amount of honeydew left from aphid excrement.” The dog remains stoic, and growls lowly.

 

Giving it one more wave by Cujo’s snout, he chucks it far with a shout. “Go get it!”

 

Cujo would have flipped him the bird if possible.

 

He bites back an entirely irrational sob of frustration.

 

Sherlock is stuck on uncomfortable monkey bars, the metal digs into his arse, after a mangy dog chases him and gets angry. But he doesn’t know animal control’s phone number and he has no mobile data left to research it. He tries, he really does, he even attempts to connect to his own mobile hotspot. Calling the police would be illegal, Irene was dead and wouldn’t answer him because she’s dead (--asleep, that woman wakes for no one.), and he had no one to blackmail into assisting him. Thus, dice-less, but he’d gotten a nice view of his painted lips in the screen’s reflection during his search for a nonexistent assistant. And they had remained perfect. So perfect Sherlock couldn’t remove the color without ripping his face off with his sleeve. Lip-stain, the product fell nothing short of its title.

 

“Aha!” John and his team should be here for morning practice soon. They would make for a decent distraction while he fled. So, for now, he leans against the steel bars and settles for telling Cujo his life story. Maybe his deductions could even piss off _dogs_.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

12% of battery left. Three hours, and not a merciful soul in sight. A few had passed him in their scarce race for homeroom, but they’d either shared his ardor for raising the volume on their everyday melodies until it hurt their ears, were, once more, too hungover to hear, or simply loathed him. Out of boredom, Sherlock can’t feel his bum and considers leaning it down to let Cujo bite it so he knows it’s still there—

 

“John!” Finally, a decent human being he hasn’t pissed off yet.

 

His shout catches the figure’s attention, as well as Cujo’s, while the dog recommences his mangy-lingo assault. “John!” Sherlock waves, a bracing breeze nearly blowing him off the elementary contraption, and causing his numb hands to grip the bars again. His skin feels as thin and fragile as paper while he maintains his balance past the light vertigo. Sherlock fears they may tear. “Over here!”

 

He sees John cup his hands over his mouth. _“So that’s the dog you were talking about?”_ He shouts back at Sherlock from the safety of the university railing at an enviable distance.

 

Sherlock frowns in confusion for a moment—oh.

 

_“Where’re you headed?”_

_Sherlock blinks at the interruption, and pauses zipping up his hoodie. Still facing the door. “To see a man about a dog.”_

Sherlock blinks dryly and shivers. “Oh.”

 

Could John not see the urgency of the situation? He was going to die of hypothermia. Some doctor he was going to be, Sherlock pities his bedside manner already. Sherlock sighs and glares back up at John’s figure, which was located twelve or so yards away. John probably couldn’t see his pitiful state from there anyways. Good.

 

“Oh, Yes!” He indulges the pathetic pun, it being physically impossible to keep his tone clear of any and all sarcasm. “I just wasn’t counting on it being rabid or existent! Be a dear and co-contact animal control?!”

 

A thumbs up does little to reassure his dying state.

 

John slips open an ancient flip phone and lifts it to his ear to mouth into it.

 

Not four minutes later, some imbecilic jock, who is most definitely not animal control, waltzes into the outdoor gym.

 

“What the hell are you doing?! Get out of here!” Sherlock warns him, but his voice is now weak and breathy.

 

And the dog immediately launches towards the idiot to glomp him.

 

Sherlock squints disbelievingly at the hell-hound licking the man’s face into next week, allowing his probable owner to leash him. His hands are still gripping the bars in a shaking, white-knuckled grasp. “W-What?” His teeth clatter as another breeze rocks his core, and he crouches low on the bars, his knees indefinitely bruising at his position. The man shouts something indecipherable to him, face crinkled apologetically, and turns away, his monster trailing behind obediently.

 

Sherlock doesn’t move until the man walks Cujo out of the gate, watching them carefully all the while.

 

And still doesn’t move. Sherlock sighs and lays his forehead against the cool metal, suddenly not wanting to move, maybe catch hypothermia, he’ll pose as an example of corrupted school systems. His undoubtedly forever-frozen statue will act as a memoir for academic struggle everywhere—even if it doesn’t apply to him at a laughable degree.

 

He feels his heart slow down. _“About sodding time, put me out of my misery.”_ Sherlock sibilantly pleads, nearly delirious with the tired vertigo rocking his core and churning his stomach.

 

A finger pokes up at his shin from below the monkey bars. Sherlock emits a startled scream as his pale eyes shoot down in alarm.

 

John appears to have managed to escape his sight. Most likely sneaking into the small park while he stared at Cujo’s instant exorcism incredulously.

 

“Hey, easy, easy.” John grins up at him through the bars sheepishly, wider, darker blues earnest beneath deeply furrowed blond brows. John gives glove-clad attempts to console him with hand gestures, as if he were a spooked animal. Sherlock wants to bark at him. “Need a hand?”

 

Sherlock squeezes his eyes closed as another gust wracks him with a bodily shiver, grip on the bars growing impossibly tighter until his hands really do seem to rip, and exhales deep and slow. He couldn’t feel his hands at all, it’s like his hands were merely keeping him grounded by muscle memory. And wasn’t that a thought.

 

“Sherlock, come on.” John finally coaxes him a bit firmer, hands coming up to grip his own dead ones clamping the bars. “You’re gonna die out here.”

 

Sherlock giggles down at him. The situation was just so ridiculous, even a sociopath had to laugh. Effectively deepening John’s frown. Oh no. Couldn’t have his roommate think him a loony. That wouldn’t do well at all, the last thing he needed was another morally-obliged hen.

 

He sobers at the thought, sniffling and slides his shivering legs over the edge. His feet dangling four feet above a ground of hard, dehydrated soil now. And punctually times just in time to take a full blown blast to the back, the wind easily leaking through the fabric of his sweater and hoodie. “For g-god’s sake.” Sherlock hisses, freezing up again, his hands numb but arms desperate to salvage any warmth by hunching in on himself. Jeez, if he moves will he crack?

 

Apparently, John would have none of it. And grips his shin _, getting touchy now are we_? Sherlock only ceases sniping due to his clattering jaw, unwilling to make any more of a fool out of himself than he already has. At least no one has mentioned the lipstick. Oh Jesus Christ, he was still wearing _lipstick._ As if to add insult to injury, his mortification does nothing to warm him.

 

The silence stretches, even as he can’t hear anything over the wind whistling in his ears, and he opens his eyes to see John gone. And blinks at John’s disappearance, feeling his chest begin to sink unpleasantly. _Strange_ , he inwardly muses with an outward, tired, little laugh _, the good little doctor seemed so concerned befor—_

The bars shake from sudden pressure, and Sherlock’s hunched form is suddenly embraced from the side and under his knees. Startled, he turns left to see John’s outstretched arms close around him before John scoots him onto his lap, _”What are you—“_ , and then slides them off the ledge. Curling Sherlock into him bridal style mid-fall to keep him from hitting the pavement, and…lands.

 

Stock-still in surprise, save for his transport’s reaction to extreme cold, he turns to John. Probably looking every bit like the deer in headlights as he feels.

 

John just raises his brows at him smugly, rendering Sherlock vocal, and complements him. “Nice makeup.”

 

Sherlock lets out a sharp scoff and grimaces as his cheeks retain whatever blood remained in his body, if only to embarrass him instead of doing something moderately helpful like circulate to the rest of his body to keep him animate. “Put me down.” Sherlock barks gravelly as he squirms in resistance.

 

John complies with a sarcastic murmur of “So polite.” And sets him down legs first, keeping a hand by his lower back, only helpful when he finally stumbles.

 

Sherlock brushes himself off with still-trembling hands—how annoying, and retaliates with. “As is manhandling people off gym equipment.” Weak, but he’s still a little surprised and just a bit dizzy from the change in position.

 

The world blurs a bit. And then he’s leaning against the sturdy pole so conveniently placed beside him, idly registering John’s stupidly warm hand gripping his bicep.

 

“How long have you been out here?” John asks breathily, apparently observing his state in a clinical eye.

 

Sherlock pats his wrist against his hoodie pocket to make sure he hadn’t lost his phone, or that something else god-awful hadn’t managed to crawl in. “Can’t tell, but last I checked, three hours had passed.” He manages to cough out.

 

John sputters at the answer. “Why didn’t you call anyone? Didn’t you ask for help?”

 

“Don’t be daft, of course I did.” John looks incredulous for a moment, so he distracts him with. “I didn’t know the number for animal control. And I’d have been arrested if I called the police department for something so ridiculous.”

 

“You were in danger—“ John shakes his head, still frowning at people passing as he lifts Sherlock’s arm over his shoulder.

 

“What are you doing?” Sherlock says and stiffens at the contact. He wasn’t exactly used to casual touching with strangers. Unless it’s too quick to dodge.

 

John peers up at him at the question. (Huh, this was the first time he’d noticed their height difference. Funny.) Raises a brow, still seeming a bit miffed on Sherlock’s behalf. The idiot, he’d just alienate himself. John’s the type for status quo and social fluttering, was he not?

 

“Keeping you from falling on your pretty face.” John blinks innocently. “What else?”

 

Sherlock twitches, and whips his head away to angrily swipe his sleeve over his mouth in seething rage. John’s arm around his waist keeps him steady as they go.

 

“I’m not attending class until this comes off.”

 

“Fair enough, I wouldn’t either—ouch! …watch your feet.”

 


	3. Hypothermia and the Wrath of the Smitten

“You’re a doctor, yes?” Sherlock asks him once he’s leant against the wall by their dorm’s front door. The abrupt question as strange as his complexion. It only works by that very fact though.  
   
John frowns at his shivering form in the hallway, “Planning to be, wouldn’t my stalker know?” then turns to unlock the door when Sherlock glares back at his concerned stare. Jesus, he just found the guy freezing to death on playground equipment, could you blame him for being a little careful? A question still gnawed at him though. How the hell had the entirety of the morning rush managed to turn a blind eye to a—quite blatantly—dying student?  
   
Sherlock speaks again, unaware of John’s bristling, internal rant. “Do you think stupidity is contagious?”  
   
What? John gives an aborted indignant huff, that immediately trails off to a small laugh.  “Not that I’m aware, unless you’re bashing mental retardation.”  
   
“Well, of course not.” Sherlock defends, hands coming up to blow into his palms. “They have an excuse.”  
   
“Do you?”  
   
“What?” Sherlock snaps, affronted, eyes becoming indignant slits over his hands.  
   
Quickly realizing his dire mistake, John corrects it in a rush before he’s killed by a hypothetical dagger to the head. “Do you think stupidity is contagious?”  
   
“Oh,” Sherlock nods and rolls his eyes looking away, seemingly at himself. As if John would call him a retard, the very thought must have been absurd. John rolls his eyes at the thought of Sherlock’s probable thought.  
   
“Yeah, although it’s generally genetic or influenced.” Sherlock hums for a second, then looks at John. “Like cancer.”  
   
John looks at him sideways, curving up his lips to seem politely intrigued, when in reality he begrudgingly finds the logic applicable to half the ward, and opens the door. Letting it swing open into the room.  
   
“Is there a cure?” He asks, leaning over to steer Sherlock’s shivering form into their room. John needed to take his temperature, right now. If Sherlock’s temperature was beneath 95 degrees John would have to call an ambulance. That didn’t appear to be the case though, Sherlock was gaining feeling back into his hands and the color back in his face. Now just sharing likeness with a sulking kitten caught in down-poor.   
   
Sherlock brushes him off and moves to enter on his own. Stopping short to stumble and lean against the peeling doorway. He must have still been dizzy.  
   
“Are you done?” John asks behind him, voice taking on an impatient sigh. Patience Watson, think of him as a patient. Patience for patients. He could tell, right now. That Sherlock would make for great practice in this area for the next four years. Great, he gets exclusive training. If Sherlock even survives long enough to act as a medical dummy. John purses his lips and steps forward, palms spread and ready.  
   
“Yes,” Sherlock breathes, sounding irritated, and straightens. “There is a cure, taking fact at face value and evading biased status quo.”  
   
This guy was so stubborn, he could probably will a wall to talk to him. Truly.  
   
“Fascinating,” John forces politeness. “I’m going to help you inside now. And then I’m taking your temperature.”  
   
“Orally, right?”  
   
This brat… John closes his eyes, an irked grin twitching at his lips, and baring his teeth. John feels the back of his neck burn and hisses out “Yes, orally.”  
   
“Oh thank god, that just might’ve turned me straight.” Sherlock murmurs too himself, before clenching the doorframe so hard his nails scratch into the wood, peeling off some of the white paint.  
   
John feels his face go aflame at the admission, and lets out an entirely inappropriate bark of laughter, then a few more and hunches over a bit. Unseeing of the way Sherlock promptly stiffens like a metal rod and grips the doorway tightly, peering over his shoulder to eye him fearfully. “Ah, sorry.” Nor how pain-stakingly slowly he loosens himself.  
   
“Come on,” He finally sobers, still a tad embarrassed and wanting to giggle. And leads Sherlock inside, noting the way he doesn’t stiffen when John puts his arm around his waist this time around.  “inside with you.”  
   
Sherlock just shakes a bit more, making John glance up. Seeing Sherlock turn his face away to hide his mortified grin, the trembling couldn’t be played off as just cold. But now breathy, disbelieving giggles too.  
   
He must have thought John would be some homophobic twat. Maybe even thinking John would do something about it.  
   
Oh Christ.  
   
John shakes off the urge to reassure Sherlock that ‘gay is okay’. Just thinking of what Sherlock must have felt at his own accidental coming-out. Especially to his own male roommate. John mumbles a quiet sorry. Sitting Sherlock onto his quilted cot, as Sherlock’s was covered in paraphernalia and petri dishes, he reaches under his bed—coming up with a small, red kit.  
   
“Open up.” John says, holding the glass thermometer to Sherlock’s mouth. Repressing the urge to pry it against his trembling lips. Because that would be strange, especially after….yeah. John blames his transfixion on the strangeness of a boy wearing lipstick.  
   
Sherlock just blinks and does, lifting his tongue to hold the thermometer’s tip underneath the slimy appendage.  
   
Salivation is a good sign. John notes, watching the action all the while, and only being knocked from his stupor by a beep.  
   
1 F and rising.  
   
He was fine, but “Shit.” just barely. What would have happened if John hadn’t had to take the long way around to get his medical textbook. Practice had been cancelled due to their coach’s wedding and a substitute hadn’t even been assigned.  
   
How long would Sherlock have stayed out there until someone finally decided to pry his frozen corpse off the bars and deal with the consequences?  
   
His outburst causes Sherlock to frown at him, crinkle of his brow looking a little too alarmed for John’s liking.  
   
“What is it?” Sherlock manages past his clattering jaw.  
   
John closes his eyes momentarily to collect himself against the entirely rational spike of anger, no matter how badly he wants to tell him exactly what it is. “You’ll be fine mate, your temperature’s above 95 and rising.” He assures and squeezes Sherlock’s knee. “Just need to warm up, okay?”  
   
Sherlock eyes the assuring hand. “Sure.”  
   
“Great,” John removes his hand at the stare and rises, looking around Sherlock’s methodic madness. “Got a heater? We can’t raise the temperature here.”  
   
“Landlords and their thermostats.” Sherlock murmurs knowingly, cocking a brow into nothingness, seeming to briefly reminisce. What was he thinking?  “No, I’ll just stretch to assuage bloodflow.” Says Sherlock, rotating his forearm in 360 degree circles to assuage blood flow to his hands. John notes the method in curiosity.  
   
“And-ah, thank you.” Sherlock says after a moment, pointedly observing his stretching arms in front of him, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I appreciate not being left to freeze to death.”  
   
John laughs to cover up the bitterness rushing up his throat, wanting to spit it out like a child. He was no fool to his fellow male classmates behavior. Especially in the face of someone so…well. Sarcastic and cynical came to mind. But hell, this was Uni, we all were-- that should’ve helped him fit in.  
   
He was so good at it too. Ah, was it because he was precocious? Were they jealous? Surely they all couldn’t be that petulant. Sherlock was just a kid too. Plus, John takes Sherlock in for a moment, he was quite a looker too. Fair complexion, high cheek bones…hair that had probably seen better days. Sherlock must have had a few admirers that would take pity on him.  
   
Sherlock was looking at him expectantly. Ah, “Anytime.” John waves off, not voicing the obvious about the genius’s  own rather concerning situation—as the headmaster had referred to Sherlock as during their last meeting. Genius. He’s not one to disagree with the hard-earned term as he observes the multitude of projects littering Sherlock’s side of the very much occupied room, feeling a little proud. There was a method to the madness here, just have to look, he supposes. Observing a jar filled with formaldehyde and tiny white balls, the label reading: Rat eyes. Lovely.  
   
Sniffing, John goes over to slip the blanket his mother knitted him over Sherlock’s shoulders. The younger man looks up from massaging his socked, dead feet, before using a hand to pull it farther his shoulders. Interesting eyes too…was that a speck of violet? No. Blue?  
   
“Indigo and violet, your mother has lovely taste.” Sherlock observes, worrying the material between his thumb and forefinger with care.  
   
John nods at the complement, because yes, she does, and toes off his shoes. Because, no he’s not leaving a student of whom has just had a near death experience for some wrinkly sod reiterating common term. John was ahead after all, and replies. “Yeah, they’re her favorite colors.”  
   
And drops down to the bed, making Sherlock bounce and dip from the sudden weight and bump into him. Only as Sherlock recoils does John notice the weirdness of the statement.  
   
“Wait. How did you know my mother gave it to me?” John questions, leaning over in suspicion. He hadn’t told Sherlock a lick about his personal life. How far did his hacking weave?  
   
“Uhhh.” Sherlock drawls for a second, curling away and nearly falling off the cot.  
   
John sighs and catches him by the arm. “Well, Mr. Stalker?”  
   
Sherlock exhales through his nose, looking weary and resigned.  
   
Oh, god. John really had a stalker. He is minutely flattered before becoming alarmed, oh god. Did Sherlock arrange to have his victim roomed with him? He did say he hacked the school system. But John could handle him, Sherlock was harmless in his state and good bit less… formidable but he—  
   
“As if I’d need to stalk you.” Sherlock snorts vaguely, making John glare at him in confusion. “I know your mother made it for you due to the uneven pulls and knitting of the material. Not machine-like in the slightest.” He informs a surprised John, spreading the wool beneath his thumbs as he crosses his legs, eyes flicking over the material’s thick thread. “Each pull is executed with care. As if not wanting to pull the wool too tightly in places to make it larger, but thick enough to ensure it not catching onto your bare toes and fingers when pulling it over yourself during chilly nights. She must have been knitting for decades, with this level of finesse.”  
   
John feels his chest slowly warm, a new affection for the gift being elicited by Sherlock’s clinical depiction.  
   
Sherlock gives him a small grin, his inky curls shadowing his eyes from the yellow lamplight above. Serving to make him look just a bit less helpless. “So, how’d you ruin the sweater your mom wanted you to wear yesterday?”  
   
And it’s gone. John just squints at him, the confused grin spreading across his face beginning to ache, and shakes his head a little. “What the fuck?”  
   
Sherlock stiffens and blinks, as if remembering himself. “No, delete it. I stuttered.”  
   
“You most definitely did not.” John calls out the pitifully executed lie the second it finishes being pathetically executed. “get on with it, Sir Psychic.”  
   
That does the trick. And he’ll later remember this as the day he was suddenly thrust into deducing hell.  
   
“Fine,” Sherlock growls and shifts to face him in his Indian position, hands going down to grip his own ankles in a steadying grip. An icy glare bores into his own perplexed one. “But you asked so don’t you dare deck me afterwards.”  
   
John cocks a brow and looks him up and down, noting his defensive posture. “I’m sure I’ll manage.” He manages past the urge to tell Sherlock that he can’t deck people because it would put his temperament evaluation in the toilet. Thus dirtying his spotless profile and later rendering him unemployed and forever alone.  
   
Sherlock sniffles and wipes his sleeve under his red nose, the color similar to that of his mouth and sharp cheeks, and starts. “Divine.”  
   
Sherlock takes deep breath. John holds his. Finally a “It was a lucky guess, good day.”  
   
“Oh, get back here.” John finally hisses in exasperation, catching Sherlock by the back of his hoodie and dragging him back onto the cot before he can sprint away. “You’re starting to freak me out.” John tells him honestly, hand gripping the front of the blanket around Sherlock’s shoulders to keep him there, acting as some sort of leash. This was a little irking now. Was he living with an alien? A super spy with super gadgets from the future who enjoyed telling people random shit about their person and then torturing them by not telling them how they knew? Maybe his future wasn’t as dull as he first thought.  ”If you don’t come out with it right now, so help me god I’ll sit on you until you tell me.”  
   
Groaning lowly and miserable, Sherlock keeps his gaze on his hands.  “Fine.” John still doesn’t release him, just lowers his arm and keeps his hand there.   
   
“You smelled of bread and tea upon your delayed arrival—“  
   
“You sniffed me?” John can’t help but cut him off at the admission, feeling his mouth wobble. “I-I don’t know what to say. Good Sherlock want a biscuit? --”  
   
“Shut up and listen—“  
   
“No wonder the dog chased you, he probably just wanted to share one—“  
   
“That doesn’t even—“ Sherlock frowns and squints, waving his arms in a small, bewildered gesture as though waving away fumes of stupidity. “Moving on, I’d assumed that you’d just returned from lunch with you mother, given the lipstick smudge where you had wiped off the affectionate mark on your cheek she left after her farewell out of embarrassment. Couldn’t be a girlfriend’s lip stain—“ Sherlock grimaces at the syllables for reasons bright, red, and well-known and bites his lower lip in ire. “--given the nonexistent pictures of her, you’d be much too affectionate with a girlfriend you allow to touch you so casually to not have any pictures of her. So it’s your mother.”  
   
“Could be a sister.”  
   
“Not a sister either,” Sherlock adds at John’s imploring look. “She’s much too busy to bother with a now-distant relative.”  
   
John raises his blond brows at him. Sherlock answers. “Caught wind of her missing face ripped from every photograph. Petty one, aren’t you.”  
   
Rolling his eyes, he asks again. “How did you know about the ruined sweater?”  
   
Sherlock shrugs and hangs his feet off the edge of the bed, making John release him from his blankie-leash. “A predominant guess, I’ll admit, I was bored and noticed that your mother knitted for you. Your sweater wasn’t knit by hand and it was your first day here. She would probably preen at her university boy being all grown up, fleeing the nest, and would want her son to wear something she’d made for the very occasion. So you clearly mucked it up and replaced it to avoid upsetting her.”  
   
Sherlock slips the blanket off his shoulders and ambles away, no longer dying. Leaving a blinking John in his wake.  
   
“Sentiment.” Sherlock accentuates with a gesture similar to that of a magician’s, all for good cause too.  
   
Wow. “That,” John, still watching Sherlock’s stiff back, nods in affirmation of his own admiration. “was totally awesome.”  
   
John  generally tried to remain mature most of the time, it earned respect from his peers in his aspired field, but even he needed his moments. He was an impressionable 18 year old boy with hopes and dreams, and innocence. Porn hadn't corrupted him in every sense of the word.  
   
Sherlock halts his trek, it was almost physically painful to watch him go before, he looked so forlorn. But now he perks up and turns to John, looking surprised. A small hesitance is visible in his posture while his voice stays proud and politely imploring. “You think so?”  
   
John huffs and slumps, watching Sherlock in slight shock. Was this guy serious? He just told him…pretty much everything he did and didn’t have going for himself at the moment. Just by looking at him. …And sniffing him, which was fine, John didn’t mind. It was… flattering.  
   
“It’s hard not to. That really was amazing—should put it on youtube-- I mean—“ He smothers a giggle when a thought comes up. “And here I was, thinking you were checking me out.”  
   
Sherlock doesn’t react, just bats his eyes, tilting his head a bit and says. “Yes, that’s what most assume. The process can...be misleading.”  
   
 “Turns out you were gay anyways, so I still win.” John grins in triumph and pulls the blanket over himself, the material is  still warm from Sherlock’s body heat.  
   
 "Oh piss off." and Sherlock's off and back to academia, inertly tracing his lower lip with his thumb as he turns to their small room made smaller by his even greater mind.  
 


	4. Fragile Hearts Encased In Thick Ribs

"Heads up!" Phil shouts after chucking over the intended-to-be-unexpected green and white rugby ball. They hadn't thrown him a ball the entire game, and it was gnawing at him. So, perhaps a little too eagerly, John catches the ball in his palms, the impact making a small 'skssh' against his palms. And dodges an unforeseen blur of black, white and blue. The object—person—not even registering in his mind before he makes his sharp evade. And propels down the soggy field, kicking up mud as he goes, the wet dirt splashes against the back of his legs. Rain pellets torrent his face and body and soak his green and white uniform. The freezing down-poor does absolutely _nothing_ to cool him down. His body seems to be evaporating the harsh liquid the second it comes in contact with his smoldering skin. It's as if he's his own breathing sauna, cleansing him from the inside out. It's intoxicating.

John finds himself marveling at his stamina every now and again. As he pushes himself to the very limit, to the very edge, to the promised land. Only to find he has to stop and turn back, but that he can keep going. He feels unstoppable. Not even the slurring sods on his new team can get him down. The adrenaline licks through his veins as ice allows a minute extinguish. Making for a dizzying blend. He's loose and sharp, everything in a focused haze.

He pants once more, seeing a white cloud waft to eye-level and beyond, and thinks it's actually fire.

A shock of pain flares in his left flank, and he's tasting dirt. There's panting above him before it's receding down the field. John groans and gets up immediately, not caring for sitting out any longer than necessary. He was fine anyways, he hadn't spent his last five years at Bellmore High diddling about. Muscle mass had its perks.

"And that's a wrap!" Coach Cockroach yells from his position on the sidelines and underneath the bench's steel awning. Fucker-Kyle must have reached the line. "Now get to the showers before my poor mother starts hacking in her grave, you all smell like crap!"

John sighs at his antics. Coach was definitely ex-military, lucky him. His name didn't exactly leave much to the imagination but he still had his head. And chucks the filthy ball into the nearby, wire cart. The ball becoming just a ball again, and rolling back to its twins. Leaving John with a warm, bodily ache. He sniffs, skin still steaming pleasantly, and lifts the bottom of his shirt up to wipe down his face.

The boys recede, trading macho-word and shove one another in rough companionship.

John waits. Finally alone, save for the muted thunder rumbling above. Tilts his head back, and breathes in deeply, as deep as possible, filling his lungs to the brim and feeling his right lobes expand in time with his left ones. Smells the occluding rain dewing freshly mowed grass. Hears the blood humming in his ears grow quieter and quieter as his pulse calms. Then opens his eyes, the light shower peppers his lashes with droplets, but never gets farther. Granting him the sight of a splotchy grey sky, clouds darkening in places and lighter in others, slowly shifting above and below each-other like mother nature's gears.

John finally exhales, the action slow and comfortable, and stares as the white mist drifts into nothingness, the surrounding drizzle dwindling his fire. He closes his eyes at the sight, and keeps his head lilted back, skull rested on the first knob of his thoracic vertebrae. Allowing his insides a cold, sharp spike and heart a constricting twinge. He allows both for reasons unknown, reasons unnecessary to know. Thunder crashes once more, this time it's closer, louder, fiercer. Making John's eyes flutter to a close, breath hitching at the reminder, and he feels the sky.

 

“Watson.”

 

John’s eyes shoot open at his name, then frenetically blink as droplets assault his corneas, quickly turning around to see his coach. “Ah, what—what is it, sir?”

 

“You can head back to your room, it’s Dante’s turn on towel duty.” The man informs him, holding his downturned clipboard over his head in an exaggerated reaction to the light drizzle the storm has receded to. “And you don’t need to shower given the one you’ve just took.” He adds, a dimmed look on his weatherworn face as he nods John in the direction of the boy’s ward.

 

“Uh, yeah, all right.” John replies with a slight frown flickering over his features before jogging off. Only pausing to shout back a “Thanks!” from a good distance away when the empathy glaring above his coach’s kind gesture finally hits him.

 

 

 ---

 

 

 

 

 

“Why are you always so eager to please?” Sherlock asks him one day, seated on the floor with the solar system spread out before him. The laminated paper reflects the fluorescent light shining from the desk lamp adjusted above it. Warping planes and galaxies of shades mint green, black and mango to pale pinks and sultry purples--small stars, and white specks littered around it. The poster was almost as large as Sherlock when he spread it from its stored roll and duck-taped the corners to the ground. He didn’t even bother cleaning up, just shoved all of his work beneath his bed. At least John’s side was spared.

 

Thinking Sherlock was being philosophical again, he answers in kind, hands still trifling through his laundry basket distractedly, he always folds his socks first.  “Why are you always so eager to deny?”

 

“I’m not eager at all.” Is Sherlock’s uneager reply. “You on the other hand, seem to love and loathe playing the team’s lapdog.”

 

All right, that was a bit too on point for John’s taste. So he snipes, aiming to discomfort and dissuade. “I appreciate the concern but it’s all consented.”

 

Apparently, Sherlock, presumptuous as ever, could not take a hint. But he could take a challenge. “Stockholm syndrome.”

 

And he sounds so sure of it, John could punch him. But he doesn’t, because Sherlock isn’t human, therefore he doesn’t eat or sleep. And John didn’t want to quicken his demise. Because that would be rude. Especially when he’s attempting to do the exact opposite. Because Sherlock was John’s friend, whether he knew it or not. And friends didn’t kill friends.

 

“No,” He announces patiently, exclusive training was going so well. Always unexpected, just what he did and didn’t need. “it’s called ‘teamwork’.” The miffed correction was made as John folded another sweater, his back still turned to Holmes. “Not that you’d know anything other than its definition.”

 

“You underestimate Oxford.” Sherlock grounds out, sounding irritable. “But yes, and I’d know that teamwork requires _said team_ to act as a _whole._ Not making the newbie play rag boy after five hour’s practice and never lending him a hit.”

 

John sighs at the words. He didn’t really care all that much, coach has been whipping them into shape ever since he caught wind of their immature pattern, at least he still had Mike. But he still gets the least throws, which can be stifling. “What wrong with staying on someone’s good side?” John asks, annoyed. Maybe _he_ was getting too philosophical. “Ah, you would know wouldn’t you?”

 

“Vividly.” Sherlock bites out, glare downturned and aimed at the paper sun before John considers taking it back. “But fine, if you’re so desperate to stay on their _good side_ , that’s where you’ll stay. Enjoy.”

 

John pauses placing his shark socks aside, frowning for a moment. Sherlock’s sudden concern was unexpected. So could you blame him for being a tad surprised? Sherlock was the very pinnacle of apathy and sass.

 

“Why are you so concerned anyways?” John accuses gruffly and turns around, trying and succeeding in keeping up the tense atmosphere surrounding their domestic argument. It was sweet, that he cared.

 

“If bored and concerned are one and the same,” Sherlock says, tone as dry as the smoke he exhales. “your dear mother’s got nothing on me.” The moment’s gone as quick as it came, and then Sherlock’s pointedly flicking ash to his right. Gesturing to a pile of newspaper and such, a letter signed in his mother’s cursive sits atop the foot-tall pile.  “You got a letter today.”

 

Heedless of Sherlock’s snooping for the time being, he stares at the mussed head as cigarette smoke floats above it. Shocked, and quickly appalled. “Are you smoking?!”

 

“No.” Sherlock says simply, promptly taking another puff. Despite the fact he’d just taken one not a moment circa sass.

 

Horrified, and mind racing with any and all smoking health hazards. Doctor John snatches the cigarette from Sherlock’s disconcertingly mature, flapper-poised fingers. “Are you insane?” John repeats, because the questions were _one and the same,_ and holds the popular poison above the boy’s head. Praying he wouldn’t stand up.

 

Sherlock doesn’t, just stays sitting before the poster, criss-cross-apple-sauce like the _child_ he _is_. “Why would you need to smoke anyways?” John asks indignantly. Maybe a little concerned for his mentality, because Sherlock was only _sixteen._ And suddenly breaking the damned thing in half. Tobacco gets under his fingernails and he can’t wipe it off on his sweater because a _teacher will notice_ and they’ll get in _trouble_. And now the room _reeks._

 

Sherlock throws his arms up, “Because I’m still breathing!” before bringing them back down and clenching them into frustrated claws, and thrusts them down at the poster. “Why can’t Pluto be a planet too?! Because it resides on Kuiper’s belt?! Because it was discovered _recently_?! 1930 is not recent! Oh, I know, because it possesses less mass than what you deem fit to house your fat arse?!”

 

John blinks down at him, a little peeved at the outburst. Watching the vehement bean-pole slouch in defeat and slide a hand down his face. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Sherlock then mutters. “My apologies John. This must be terribly ironic to your rugby alienation.”

 

Conceal, don’t feel, don’t kill the bloke. John takes a steadying breath and focuses on his exercise.

 

_Step one, focus on patient’s strong points, other than them being a patient you must tend to accordingly or you get fired._

 

John takes in the messy curls, hardly ever brushed as far as John’s aware, the slender form hunched in a petulant slouch, soft sweatshirts, all comically contrastive to the eloquence the boy’s tongue articulated and wonders his mind conducted.

 

 _Step two, understanding._ And comes to realize then, that try as Sherlock might, he really was just a child at heart. John knows the feeling well, wants to be an adult today, then a child tomorrow. Still feels it sometimes

 

He rubs the tobacco between his fingers with a grimace. John doesn’t know what’s driven him to such lengths to relax, and it most certainly wasn’t Pluto. Couldn’t be. Nor academics, Sherlock simply excelled. He’d even done extra the extra homework his professor had given him as punishment for interrupting—correcting-- his class, to spite him. Sherlock had later arrived, kicking in the door in, lanky arms piled high with Physiology 2 textbooks and two chocolate bars. John had rushed to him, later scolding him for trying to commit suicide by performing a self-inflicted Crushing execution. John blames his overbearing concern on the fact that he’d learned about the execution type earlier that day in history class. Elephants were scary.

 

But he understood. Sherlock may not be aware-- even think he’s above it all—but it adds up. Subconsciously even. And the revelation is going to hurt when it becomes too hard to ignore. John refuses to let that happen to him. Not while he’s here.

 

His loyalty was so easily won over by some sarcastic, presumptuous brat. John sighs in the real. He’s too soft. “I hate you.” John says and shakes his head fondly, obviously lighthearted.

 

But Sherlock’s shoulders stiffen all the same. “Uh,” And John rushes to correct himself before he’s even aware he is. “Not literally of course,” John chuckles at the possibility for good measure. “you’re my friend.” John announces in earnest, finding the intensity of the statement a little embarrassing. But true, very true indeed. He wouldn’t have had any other roommate if he could, careless of the way those aware of his rooming arrangement avoided him. All the better to avoid them.

 

If anything, John was glad to be here for Sherlock. Make sure he’s all right. Sherlock’s casual disengagement made John uneasy, he’s been wary ever since the monkey-bar incident. It was kind of…terrifying. To call for help and see people, people who run just like you, breath just like you, see just like you. Let you suffer. And Sherlock’s aloof acceptance only made it worse.

 

Sherlock lets out a breathy ‘oh’. The sound soft and shocked. It strikes a cord in John, and he grinds the cigarette to gritty bits at the implications of it.

 

“Is...is that so?” Sherlock inquires, a voice sounding small. An utter opposition to the infuriatingly aloof and intimidatingly intelligent boy he’s come to know.

 

John swallows at the sudden vulnerability. The odds weren’t against him, no. John wouldn’t hurt him, probably couldn’t if he tried, not like this. But it was worrying. The intensity of the moment, the very possibility of him being someone else. How easily John could hurt him, take any notion of a friend away. But relief floods him like a tidal wave. Because he is him.

 

“Of course. Aren’t you supposed to be AP?” John grins off the fervor, dropping the cigarette to the floor and crushing its already tattered remains beneath his sneaker. Nose twitching at the smell while Sherlock cocks his head back to peer up at him. John glares at Sherlock when he finishes, no heat in the gaze this time, not right now, making Sherlock raise an eyebrow. And digs a hand into the back of the curly mop, ruffling it harder at the noise of quiet surprise he got. “If I catch you smoking again I’ll steal your new biochemistry textbook.”

 

Sherlock scoffs and shakes off John’s hand, leaning away when the rough affection doesn’t cease. Leaving his hair in a  disastrous flurry. John snickers when an image of a disgruntled poodle pops up, checking the clock on the wall out of habit. And swivels on his heel to go grab his wallet.

 

“Hungry? It’s almost lunch in the cafeteria.” John questions, waving his wallet for emphasis. Still forcing casual just a bit. “My treat.”

 

Still patting his poofed head down, Sherlock turns away and replies. “Not hungry.”

 

“You didn’t get a meal plan?—don’t look at me like that.” John reprimands, exasperated at Sherlock’s indignant swivel. As if the very prospect of pursuing a healthy regimen was blasphemy.  “Jesus do you even eat? I think I saw you eat a chocolate bar once.” John recalls the epidemic and raises an eyebrow at Sherlock’s back.

 

“You must have been hallucinating, I’m a chlorophyll, I absorb sunlight.”

 

“You don’t even go outside.” And it’s true, John even asked if he was a vampire once, making Sherlock squint at him and ask if John was actually a dwarf.

 

“I put a flashlight in an empty milk carton.” Sherlock waves him off, sounding dead serious.

 

“That doesn’t even—What are you?—“ A sigh. “You know what? I’ll just bring you something.”

 

“Waste of money, and people will judge you for purchasing an extra helping.” Sherlock quips, attempting to invoke a sense of diffidence.

 

It was laughable. “I’m an athlete. I eat, like, four trays. What’s the shame in one more?” John defends, amused and re-lacing up his shoe. If there was one thing he wasn’t ashamed of, it was his appetite. He needed his nutrients, lest he faint before a touchdown. Scary.

 

Sherlock slumps. “Waste of money.” It sounds like a question.

 

Cute. John rolls his eyes when he reaches the door and tosses back a, “I’ll be right back.” locking the door behind him.

 

Well, off to deafening, static chaos to prevent his friend from starving to death. An eardrum-sacrificial endeavor John Watson has bravely undertaken. John thrusts his hand forward, imitating a knight hailing his mighty sword, the theatrical motion goes unseen in the abandoned corridor. The guys directing Camelot’s play this year would preen at his form _. Now! To battle!_

 

\---

 

 

 

 

“This,” Sherlock says, poking at his instant ramen cup with a plastic spork. “is why I can’t go to jail.”

 

“It was the lightest thing I could find,” _Apart from soup crackers_ , John doesn’t add, lest Sherlock ask for those instead, and takes another bite of his PB and J.  Glancing at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye when he chews and swallows. “you hardly use your stomach so I didn’t want to give it too much to digest. Don’t be picky.” He chastises the pickiest bird he’s ever had the worrying fortune of knowing.

 

“I’m not picky, I just require some simple comme ci, comme ça.” Sherlock murmurs the strange word—sounds French--, slightly petulant and scrawls something or other onto his red binder. His galactic poster has already been rolled up and stuffed beneath the nearby splintered, ratty stool. “Would it kill them to exercise a _little_ etiquette?”

 

“No,” John disagrees, looking down at his crumbling sandwich, then flicks a gnat off the soppy bread. “But it’ll kill us in the mean time.”

 

“Happiness awaits." Sherlock sighs tiredly and rises from the floor, grabbing his hieroglyphic binder as he goes. And drops his ramen into the cylinder metal garbage can after pushing the bottom lever down with his toe, causing the cover to flip open to accept his unwanted jail-food. “I’m off.”

 

John squashes down the immediate the urge to accompany him. Because that’s unnecessary and Sherlock doesn’t take well to hovering. Telling from the near-shouting match he’d overheard Sherlock having on the phone with his overweight-as-he-is-overbearing older brother. Couldn’t have been a boyfriend given all the sarcastic ‘brother’s’ and ‘brother-dear’s’.

 

Instead, John settles for “Where to?” Just to know where to find him if he’s not back by dark. Not overprotective, but rational. Because everyone scoffs, sneers, or turns away when they’re made aware of his dorm arrangement. And he’s aware of how sketchy the situation is. John has looked into rumors, from this he’s learned that the Holmes name isn’t cursed, no one’s been murdered or brutally beaten by anyone who holds it, Sherlock is not discriminated against for his sexuality or they aren’t aware—which was a minute relief.

 

Sherlock was merely some creepy psychic or stalker who knew everything about anyone. The negative feedback shocked John for a second, because the object of their ire was so…brilliant. Otherworldly in a way, sure,  but couldn’t they see past their initial alarm? The assumptions made sense, but once they saw the method to the invasion of privacy it was actually pretty cool.

 

“To see a man about a—“ Sherlock shuts his mouth with a small click, cutting himself off mid-seventh vowel. Oh dear.

 

“That dastardly butterfly effect.” John blows out a sudden breath, making a quiet ‘whoosh’. “Can’t have that happen again now can we?”

 

“And while statistic rules the odd happenstance _horrendously_ improbable, I am taking no chances.” Sherlock hisses down at his zipper, coming to a stand at the door.

 

“Speaking of ‘odd’-- or should I say ODD-- when do you think you’ll be back?” John prompts casually, still curious. Turns back to his laptop, and absent-mindedly types in the process wherein psoriasis commonly causes cardiovascular disease and diabetes—and how it attributes _system-wide inflammation_. “Eugh. Immunodeficiency’s a cunt.” John grumbles to himself.

 

“Oh, you’re a clever one.” Is Sherlock’s sarcastic murmur to his Oppositional Defiance Disorder reference, John hears him slide his binder off the stool and under his arm. The creaking thing only serves as a coat rack by the door, for it couldn’t take the weight of anything more. John conducted the experiment himself, and went to use it, ultimately landing on his ass--the broken thing creaked before a leg gave out and sent him sprawling to the left. A snickering Sherlock had been his only compensation for the failure. Still worth it.

 

“But I suppose it depends on the line at Tesco’s. Customers are relatively sparse on Wednesday’s.” Sherlock’s voice breaks his stupor.

 

John ceases typing at the force of his relief, and sighs. Okay, this was getting silly. The school’s hostility was pretty new to him though, so John rolls with it. And lets the relief flow. Sherlock wouldn’t be roaming the spiting halls, just a quick stop at their local grocery store. In and out. Simple. Safe. No reason for to have a sexuality crisis.

 

“Want anything?”

 

John blinks at the offer. “What?”

 

“W. A. N. T space A. N. Y. T-“ Sherlock starts, patient per usual.

 

“—yeah, yeah I’ll take an energy drink.” John grounds out, glaring at the 300 out of 1000 word essay due by tomorrow afternoon. “ta.”

 

Sherlock makes a quiet sound of repulsion, a sardonic “ta ta.”, and slips out the door. Leaving John to his endless, digital devices and inevitable myopia.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

It's dark when he returns to hell—Birkbeck. The sky a blackish hue of dark blues. Stars glitter down at him mockingly and he feels anger spike for Pluto. And the university's out-of-date academics. They must have dated back before 2006 at least. That's when Pluto was officially acknowledged as what it truly _was_. He would do the same, despite his probable mark because teachers were too lazy to look into fact.

 

He shifts the two bags in his hand-- in his left as his right was primarily used for most tasks and he wouldn't mind evening the muscle mass. The papery plastic digging into his palm discomforting, and opens the glass doors housing the empty main lobby (Mrs. Hudson must have gotten off early). Set on stuffing his Mexican (and flammable, unlike pussy-footing American Crayola) crayons, an extra binder, and his emergency Marlboro's into his parcel locker. Then extending his essay to delineate Milkomeda's predicted affair. And ignoring his takeout until John asks if he can have it.

 

Sherlock enters the Masterlock's code, 314159, chuckling quietly. And sets his bags down. Leans forward to trifle through his rather messy locker, the files held in the cheap Manilla folders he borrowed from the main office keep slipping out, what a pain. He pushes aside another folder, pressing it against the steel inner wall, and searches with his left hand. The clutter now out of his way, and comes up with his research on mammal heme biosynthetic pathway and their mitochondrial and cytosolic enzymes, and disease brought on by inherited mutation and environmental factor. Labeled: Student Corporeality. Mandatory, no. Immature, yes.

 

Just then, he hears snickering and then a body slam against metal. And moaning. Loud, intentionally-whorish moaning a mere three feet from his locker. At least his door blocked them from view. "Oh," The squeaky voice suddenly mewls. "you're so big." The male growls pretentiously at the praise, the sound like that of a feral weasel's and seemingly into the girl's neck. "So big, baby."

 

Sherlock barely smothers a 'yuck' at the pet name--eugh infintalism--, and settles for clearing his throat before it sounded like something else. "Excuse me." He makes his presence known politely and reaches down to gather his bag. "And might I advise you privatize your-ah coitus?" Sherlock ignores the way his stomach flutters strangely at the word. "Patrol will be performing their nightly rounds earlier today due to rumored drug dealings." It was true too. Nothing heavy was dealt, only cannabis. Couldn't stand the stuff, it slowed people down and made them talk too much. Never a good combination.

 

The girl whines a bit as the male removes himself from her pliant grasp. He chuckles. "Well, well, well, if it isn't _Sherlock Holmes_." The male voices in mock-cheer, arms probably gesturing the 'spectacle' to thin air.

 

Sherlock's eyes narrow on the vented metal in front of him, still crouched, bag in hand. And frowns at the tone. Anderson. Slurred speech. Mewling girl easily left to nothing, the girl, Sally, if he recalls the similar moans near nightly hours, is a prize around here. As she's popularly known as the Good Girl. Theatrically contrastive to the university's Woman, they'd taken to shagging her as Irene was untouchable. By default, Sally was practically every guys wet dream, hell knows why. Sneaking from her ward when patrol switches shifts, a smart one she is. So Anderson must be feeling on top of the world. Is intoxicated. Brilliant, another stumbling fool. They were uncommon at this hour too.

 

A shadow shades him from the flickering fluorescent light above. Sherlock peers up to see the man leaning against the locker next to his, his arm pushing the door completely open to use it as a wall. Eyes bloodshot and cheeks flushed. Inebriated indefinitely. And sighs, he really hates it when he's right. Sometimes. Sherlock frowns and rises to his full height, which wasn't to its peak yet and allowed Anderson a few inches on him.

 

Anderson grins, face contorted in an amused sneer. As if Sherlock's very existence were laughable. And says, "So sorry to bother you, just getting some pussy, all right?" not sounding sorry in the slightest, the boast as clear as the opportunistic haze that surrounded him. Sally just took him in, bored, before giving Anderson's backside a thorough look-over, still looking flustered as she shifts from foot to foot and leans against some poor sods locker.

 

Sherlock can't help the small, grossed-out sound that pushes its way up his throat this time, and steps a little to the left. To put some space between them—his breath really reeked- and casually reaches his hand into the plastic bag to pull out his new binder, slipping his Student Corporeality folder into it, then back into his bag. Might as well do it tonight. And tosses the cigarettes and crayons into his papery pool. The motion too quick for Anderson to identify the childish item or the tempting other.

 

Now he just needs to shut his locker. "I see." He acknowledges, and pointedly looks at the locker door, and back up at the fool. Raised brows and all. Anderson ignores his silent request, or maybe his vision's gone too blurred. "So you get some? Rumor has it you're a virgin."

 

Sherlock suppresses a scoff rather poorly. Such a rumor did not exist, nor would it ever. He was well known, but wasn't _that_ well known. Sherlock hardly came out, never attended an event, joined a club. Submerged, just under the radar. A muted dot signaling an abandoned submarine. Mmm, too far. He vocalizes a polite "That's none of your concern." And it wasn't, nor would it ever would be.

 

Anderson just 'mmm's and crosses his arms, still leant against his locker. "Yeah, I see how it is," He nods and looks away for sport before he turns back to Sherlock, eyes crinkled mockingly. And Sherlock wants to know what 'it' is.

 

"You're young and inexperienced so you don't know what you're missing." Is Anderson's intellectual surmising, his drunken laugh sprays spit. "Sherlock the wide-eyed virgin!" He curtly crows on a slur, arms uncrossing to curl around his aching midsection. It's not fuzzy, Sherlock finds himself noting in annoyance. And dear god, why couldn't people just leave his sex life be? It's none of their sodding business! Why was it even socially acceptable to just-up and ask about a stranger's dick? Wasn't he supposed to be the gay one?!

 

"yeah," Sherlock finds himself agreeing, eye twitching at the bumbling moron as he struggles to find the floor. "because we all know the more you shag, the bigger your dick gets and the smaller your eyes grow," Sherlock shrugs in heated resignation, glaring down at the still-hunched figure from his peripherals. "until you can't see what you're shagging anymore. Be it your mother or a dog. You'll never know." Sherlock clenches his paper bag's handle and nods side-ways to Whore. "Take you and Sally for example, her tits have grown the size of two ripe boars. Can't even see the cow rutting against her leg, such a shame."

 

As it would turn out, Anderson wasn't as inebriated as he'd first assumed. And fully capable of fisting the front of his sweatshirt, lifting him up, and slamming his back into the metal lockers with a resounding clatter. It happens in a second, and it takes less than that to register the knuckles pressing into his collar bones, the sure grip on his shirt's material holding him there like a dog. And suddenly wants him to John instead. Because John wouldn't hurt him. He would coax Sherlock into being Sherlock, his hold gentle and face kind. Well, if threatening to sit on him could be classified as affection. And John was also curious. Not feral, face lined in deepening resentment, menacing. Threat. Enemy.

 

"Watch it punk." Anderson's occluding breath washes over his face, he wants to gag. Waking him from his initial surprise, as Anderson had never touched him before. But he brings up his hands to push at Anderson's all the same, they were wrinkling his shirt too. Damn it, if Anderson ripped it he might just bite him. At least he didn't link Sherlock to his Twix bar exploding in his face at lunch yesterday.

 

"Let go immediately."

 

"Or what?" Is his cliché commandeer of peer pressure.

 

"Or you can bid your father's dream job good day." Anderson, your typical dream achieving sloth, leaping to bounds off his father's fortune. An heir was necessary and Sherlock pities their company. "Surely Greg wouldn't mind catching wind of your hobby." And Sherlock hardly remembers the headmaster's name, but he does now. This was not good.

 

"Says the guy shagging Adler."

 

Oh, had the rumor already gotten out? This was hysterical. And the threat so absurd. Greg had already been made aware of his sexuality, either by observation (he was ex-DI after all) or by Mycroft. So he'd know Anderson was lying right off the bat. He even asked Sherlock to keep the preference he never put out for a secret. Looking ashamed of his school's reputation all the while. Which is exactly why Sherlock says this instead.

 

"She's my cousin." A classic. The silent 'you're sick' is loud and affronted.

 

The sneer leans closer until Sherlock can taste its breath. "Then maybe I can just make sure you never open that little mouth again." Sherlock knows he wouldn't. _Knows_ there was too much on the line for him. But in this moment, he _knows_ and he _feels_ his stomach clench in fear. And somehow, that's even worse. _And_ it's also the only thing keeping him from asking Anderson if his mouth was pretty as well as little. If you were going to use cliche movie-lines to threaten people you might as well do it right. "Can't tattle with no teeth."

 

"Philip, that's enough." Sally finally says, sounding a bit off. Sherlock doesn't turn to her. And then—for reasons relating to the utter imbecility of his infantile months—he says, "I can still write, you moron."

 

Anderson smiles. And releases his left hand's grip to reach down for Sherlock's right hand, his right hand still keeping Sherlock pinned. Sherlock damns the sharp gasp he emits when Anderson clenches his fingers in a constricting grip. Immediately trying to wriggle out of the steadily tightening grasp, Sherlock hisses lowly and pushes at Anderson's broader chest. Panic clouds his mind for a moment and he thinks Anderson's grip on his hand would never stop, couldn't. He cuts that thought off the moment it rears.

 

"That's enough Phil," Sally says again, sounding reasonably fearful for herself now. "He's getting loud." And that just makes Sherlock want to laugh and laugh and _laugh_ for reasons he's unwilling to look into. Reasons unnecessary to know. He hadn't even noticed his vocal pain and isn't that just the icing on the restraining order?

 

But he can’t express his hysteria, even if he wants to. Can't even tell Anderson he's ambidextrous. Because a clammy palm prevents such a ridiculous action. Forcing his head against cold steel with a bruising clasp that seizes him. Stubby fingers dig deep into his jaw and Sherlock keeps it clenched to prevent them from digging any deeper. And Sherlock would rather die than open his mouth and risk tasting something so putrid, much less to bite him. The fingers gripping his mandible tighten again, blunt nails bite into his skin, and Sherlock can’t fight his mounting terror this time. It had been an unnerving, muted buzz before. And it was now a deafening swarm. Bees loud and relentless without cease. Sherlock pushes him harder, stronger, still weaker. Sherlock hisses through the palm at the size difference, he could hardly reach Anderson's chest to push him away, inebriated or sober, the slimy bastard still used anything and everything to his advantage like the shameless whore he is.

 

Anderson pushes him back thrice his force and makes his head spin from the blow his head takes as it smacks the metal. Sherlock can feel the sting of broken flesh on the back of his scalp and the sticky blood it dribbles through his roots after it hits the sharp edge of the locker's air vent. Leaving him dazed and watery-eyed at the impact. It's a shock and a revelation all in one, and all he can see are the cars zooming past the window pane behind his captor, just below the building and across the darkened yard. Oblivious to anything that isn't their pick-up dinner or family meeting.

 

“Which first?” The question makes his eyes snap back to him. Anderson fixes his blurry gaze on his--maybe it's just his gaze making him blurry--, his lip a disdainful curl, his slurred voice breaks Sherlock's buzz. And squeezes Sherlock’s dying fingers and face hard. He's going to bruise. “Teeth or fingers?”

 

His chest seizes and he suddenly feels nauseous, he’s stuck for a second. Apart from the stuttered wet gasp he inhales at the question. Then, for the first time in a long time. Sherlock wants scream. He wants to wail, beat his knuckles bloody on brick, scratch himself up, bite his arms. He wants to hurt because _he’s_ in control. He wants to hurt because it’s bad. He wants to hurt because he shouldn’t want to.

 

“What’s wrong?” Anderson mocks care, eyes half-shut and lax as he brutalizes a minor. Sherlock wants to growl at the unfairness of it all, why couldn't _he_ be drunk for this? Mostly though, Sherlock wants to _spit on him_. Show him a _real_ sneer. A _real animal_. Sherlock knows he could, it’s guttural roars pound his core. But he’s weak here, and his chest still encases the rage in aggrieved ice. Leaving him cold and flinching. “Gonna cry?”

 

He'd rather die screaming than grant this repugnant scum the mere micro of satisfaction. And yet. He briefly recalls when he was a child, when he calloused himself by refusing to cry over menial happenstance. As most children his age had. It worked for a while, and achieved in his teachers assuming he was psychotic.

 

Though the practice was now proving futile as his chest shook and vision blurred. " _fsshk_!" He curses behind the palm when a tear breaks past. And tries to rip his fingers from the bone-creaking clasp, he didn't care if they broke. He didn't. He wishes his friend was here, he would help. Maybe Grain, Irene would swivel her hips and threaten to sue their pants off, maybe take Sally out to dinner afterwards. He needed _to go_. He needed to go _right now, right no_ —

 

"Hey! Stop that!" A flashlight illuminates them from down the corridor to his right. It's blinding and just what he needs. The sweaty hand releases his mouth. Sherlock lets his jaw flex as he sinks down the chilled locker and onto the hard floor. He didn't have legs, maybe give them a break. He hears a light scuffle and muffled curses to his left, and refuses to turn and view their stumbling, predicted flee. Dress shoes pattering the pristine tile grow in volume to his right.

 

Sherlock slouches, his rubber soles keeping his legs half bent while he breathes without restraint. He breathes in again. And again. Another inhale, another exhale. Another. He chokes on it. He tries one more time. But it _wasn't working,_ why wasn't it _working?_

 

"Son," A voice pants above him, overweight from ten too many frozen meals and Oprah marathons. " you alright?"

 

"Fuck off." It's breathless and harsh, numb. What he needs it to be. So he says it again. And again. And again. And again. It's unoriginal but he doesn't care, he gets a turn too. He deserves it, he's going through a very intense chemical imbalance, teenager get-out-of-jail card by default. He chokes the curse out until the man just leaves, until he can't get a word in, until Sherlock can't hear his divorce anymore.

 

 _I need a cigarette_. Sherlock thinks as he presses his hands to the floor to lift himself. Reaching up on shaky legs and leant against the biting metal for leverage. Sherlock crumples from the unease twisting his innards in immobilizing pain. It's shameful, it's mortifying, it's ridiculous. He's weaker than he knew. Sherlock can't get up and off his knees, the harsh floor bruises them but he can't move. It's infinitely frustrating. He wants to shout at himself, will himself into submission. But the ice in his chest is crippling, it turns his stomach and scathes the inside of his ribcage. Sherlock can hardly breath anyways, perhaps a break would do him well. John would be disappointed too.

 

So he sinks back down, back to locker and shaking legs splayed, stays there, and pretends it's actually smoke. The gelid wracks really soothing nicotine.

 

Nor will a single tear fall, this would make for great practice. Would be a waste, such an opportunity didn't rear its head everyday. And Sherlock's always loved a good challenge.

 


	5. Fragile Hearts Encased In Thin Ribs

John races down another corridor, pace brisk and nerves on edge. He’d gotten caught up in his stupid essay, only after finishing it and reaching his arms over his head to stretch his stiff back had he noticed the dark hour. The black sky as plain as not-day through the windowpane peeking through open blinds. And immediately regretted not trading numbers with Sherlock until he noticed the shiny device plugged into the wall and rested on a jar. Jar test or something, that’s what Sherlock said.

 

So here he is, running around like some lost puppy with separation anxiety. When, for all he knew, Sherlock could have just decided to take the long way back, maybe a walk in the park, perhaps gone to see a friend.

 

 _Yeah, right._ He wants to drone to no one, it may have been rude but it was honest. Perhaps Sherlock was beginning to have a bit of an influence on his behavior as well. Perhaps. Point is, Sherlock absolutely loathes the cold, loathes any exercise of the sort, and has no friends. If the way Sherlock reacted to his friendship like a virgin being proposed to was anything to go by. Ergo, something’s probably wrong and John’s gonna find out what. If there isn’t and Sherlock just frowns at him, asking why he’s bothering him? Well, he’s just another hen.

 

A boy stumbles around a far corner and John almost says Sherlock’s name. Almost. The boy’s too tall, too straight judging by the equally inebriated girl hanging off his arm. John turns away before he notices how rushed they look. Strange, when he squints past the shadows encasing the stairway they rush to climb. John can make out Anderson’s rat-like features. He wants to stop them, because women weren’t allowed after hours and without visitor’s pass. This could hurt the team even.

 

With a silent sigh, he relents the inward chastising. John had more important matters at hand. And the sight before him has only aided his unease. John rushes down the way they came, with nowhere better in mind anyways. Not accusing, not saying his teammate was a bully or possible murderer.

 

The corridor is quiet, deserted and cold. It chills his hands and cheeks but that’s all, he slipped on a sweater and a jacket beforehand. Actually warm compared to the paper-thin sweatshirt Sherlock usually wore. The idiot. John passes by the cement stairs without word, forward. And comes to a stand, the beginning of the hall where uni students had fluttered through not a few hours before now empty.

 

The ceiling sports a dull, stained and flickering row of fluorescent LED bar lights, around four or six feet of space separating them and casting shadows in each space. Dark splotches of shade are only faintly alight from headlights red, blue and orange that dance across the eerie areas. Gleaming through the vast hallway windows from his right and onto the locker walls to his left. It felt wrong. Unwelcome. Forbidding even. Similar in definition to a word he’d learnt in English class. Kenopsia?

 

But there, beneath an open locker door as it lightly swings from left to right in mind-numbingly slow tilts from an unknown force, he sees a hunching figure. Only when it’s illuminated in bright red headlighting does John rush down the hall. A mere 12 yards, footsteps quiet and growing steadily conflicted. Was he all right? Why was he cradling his head? Was he hurt? There was no blood but that meant nothing. Why was his posture so loose? Was that a good thing? Heavy breathing. Panting, had he out-run someone?

 

John walks up to the figure quietly, as to not startle yet make his presence known. He wasn’t granted a twitch and stands in front of him, his body shadowing Sherlock’s still form from the minute, blinding red glare.

 

“Sherlock?” He voices the name quietly, all his worry somehow voiced in two mere vowels. Nothing, Sherlock continues his quiet, labored breathing. John says it again, fighting the urge to touch him instead.

 

The curly mop abruptly snaps up and slams against the metal behind it. John jumps at the clatter. While Sherlock keeps his head tipped back, long sternocleidomastoid muscles stretched just beneath pale skin, and laughs. Grin gaudy and teeth tine. Breathy, hollow, Sherlock laughs it for a not even two seconds before John wants to shake him. Then he dies down and takes a deep breath through his nose, eyes shut tight. Opposing from their previously crinkled, half-shut state. The abrupt amusement gone as quick as it came.

 

“Yes, yes, I’m all right. Just give me a moment.” Sherlock drones, sounding annoyed. Shoulders high and head low now, John can count the knobs in his cervical vertebrae.

 

Yeah, you just went Batman’s Joker on me and you expect me to think you’re _all right_? John would have laughed with him if Sherlock were still laughing himself.

 

“No you’re not.” John says after a _moment_ , staring the top of Sherlock’s head down. Patient no matter his urge to help Sherlock breath.

 

Sherlock chokes on a small whine and John grimaces at the unseemliness of it. Still looking down, always looking down, he’d hardly looked John in the eye since he’d told Sherlock he was his friend.

 

At a bit of a loss now, John asks. “Do you want to talk about it?” Which was quite simply one of the stupidest things John could ever recall saying.

 

Sherlock’s breath hitches strangely, making John think he was going to start laughing again. Oh no--

 

Sneakers squeak against the tacky tile as Sherlock suddenly pulls his legs into his chest, hiding his face behind his knees. Letting out a sound that shocks John where he stands. It’s strangled and almost reluctant. Wet, and out of breath. John blinks down at the tightly fetal-positioned figure stupidly for a second. Unsure if he’d heard what he just heard.

 

Two more confirm his suspicions, and John doesn’t know what to do. Because Sherlock, the precocious silver-tongue, the brat who possessed stoicism all any and all English men envied, who told their ancient chemistry teacher it was 'a little early to be cremated' when her bum came too close to a nearby flame as she bent over to address another student, was _sobbing_. John shouldn’t be so surprised, he shouldn’t be. But he still has no idea what the fuck managed to distress this clinical _god_.  And John’s mind wasn’t exactly being PG-bully-documentary anymore.

 

 _“Fuck._ ” The sharp, stuffy curse echoes, Sherlock’s form managing to curl tighter into itself. And John wonders if Sherlock will ever look at him again. “Just give me a mome—“ The sentence is cut off by a hiccupping sob, the gasp catching ‘e’. The unfamiliarity of it is painful to hear.

 

“Just—“ John clenches his fists until his nails bite into his life-lines. “ _Please._ ”

 

Something finally caves at the unexpected plea, and it hurts. John feels tears spring to his eyes, and crinkles his stinging nose to hold it back. Sherlock….Sherlock is not—this. He  He’s not. It’s so strange. So wrong and John feels awful for feeling this way. Sherlock was only human, of course he felt too. John was retarded to think he hadn’t to begin with, but he wants Sherlock back, John wants his arrogant and clever blasé back.

 

He does not voice this, not a word. It’s selfish. _He_ was supposed to be the calm one here, the composed one, the patient doctor and tending to his hysterical patient. Calming, conciliating, steady. Not allowing fear of the unknown, the unexpected, to make him drip cold sweat by the buckets. Doctors couldn’t function on fear, the results can be life-threatening. He knows this. It’s his mantra, his self-inflicted directive, his calling. Brought on by oath, determination, and sheer willpower to keep his gaze off a bottle.

 

But he’s already on his knees. Pulling the bony frame into his warmer one the second the plea is whimpered—holding the boy in an all-or-nothing embrace, one arm hooked behind his neck and cradling his head close, John’s other arm pulling his upper-back away from chilled steel. John isn’t surprised by his reaction in the slightest, he’s always known he was a loyal, bloody-minded dog. He had been commandeered. Sherlock was never an exception, he was worse. Far worse. And it’s only been **_a few weeks_** , this **_bastard_**.

 

Sherlock stiffens a little and pushes at his chest, still weak from whatever he’s just experienced or weak in comparison to John’s anxious embrace. The initial frustration is extinguished in an instant, And his embrace only tightens at the resistance. John doesn’t know what would happen if he let go. John is afraid.

 

John feels Sherlock’s left hand press against his left pectoral, but it’s even weaker than the first. “ _John please_ —“

 

“Sorry, little busy right now.” His rush of determined awkward is so disproportionate from Sherlock’s apparent tragedy John wants to bash his head into the locker in front of him. But just stays on his knees, arms sure and leaning over to  cuddle the reluctant pole.

 

And then Sherlock just…freezes, before a rather violent sob wracks his frame, sounded a bit like a half-laugh too. And then he’s shaking so badly John wants to ask if he’s still cold. Still cold from his near-death encounter with heinous classmates, bipolar dogs and playground equipment. John doesn’t because it’s stupid, just props his chin on Sherlock’s shoulder and pulls him in by his bony shoulders--and rubs his palm up and down Sherlock’s back, counting the spinal knobs he can feel as he goes. Possibly transfer some heat if Sherlock really is cold. Sherlock was a lot smaller when he wasn't puffing out his chest like some high and mighty peacock. He fit so well in John’s arms, boxed in knees and all.  John felt like he was trespassing, seeing something no one was supposed to see. Scratch that, he definitely was, given Sherlock’s constant disregard and, as some might even say, slight disgust at compassion.

 

Yet, he now burrows into him, melting into John’s resolute embrace as his curly mop nudges underneath John’s chin, making John’s nose twitch at the hairs tickling him there. Arms snaking beneath John’s leather jumper to grip the back of his sweater. Left wrist pressed to John’s back and his right fist bunching the fabric tight. Not quite a hug, but a small stability, a tentative acquisition to take what John has so readily given. Relenting, accepting, painfully accepting as his breathing worsens, as his apathetic demeanor splits and ruptures.

 

And _damn_ if it's almost painful to refrain from grabbing Sherlock by the arms and asking him _who the fuck_ did this. How they managed to hurt  _Sherlock_ of all people. Just so he can find them and shove a cacti-trophy up their tight arse for managing the seemingly-impossible task of distressing this sophisticated egghead of a hellion.

 

But the force of Sherlock’s hard sobs wrack his own chest, quite possibly equating the turmoil. And John _has_ to take it all, every throaty cough, every worryingly deep heave. Take it all, even as reflected neon street light swims in the liquid pooling his tear-ducts. The tears from the pending, unorthodox fortuity weighing over him. Making him think the worst, and the fear doesn’t cease, if it only magnifies. He doesn’t blink either, for some childish reason involving masochism and an attempt to recreate Sherlock’s pain. Maybe give him some relief at the mutual feel. Let them sting more than they already do. Even so, John finds a comfort of his own in Sherlock's weak grasp and the tears wetting his faker-sweater.

 

They stay there for a while. And John doesn't think about how Sherlock's body and warmth held so closely to his felt  better than the blanket his mother made for him after Sherlock used it.

 

 


	6. The Dead-Pan, Posh Princess and The Dull-As-Dishwater, Delayed Pauper.

John Watson shouldn’t feel this way. Not at all, not in the slightest. Mmm, perhaps a bit. Okay, far more than a _bit_ , _of course how could he not?_ But this is just ridiculous. It’s wrong, bad, so very very bad, probably vaguely immoral and quite a little psychotic.

 

But as he allows his grip on the calmed boy to slack invitingly, his fingers slipping through silky dark curls that look every bit as soft as they feel. Only for his fingers to come back soaked in sticky red. He finds he can’t really help it. Can’t help the stupidly vivid image of Sherlock’s eyes, uncharacteristically wide in alarm, pain, and perhaps raw fear managing to break past through the crinkle of his brow and purse of his lips as some unknown figure  looms above, as menacing as it is promising.

 

Nor the rather macabre mental image that flutters to the fore-front of his mind, enticing and innocent. As he repeatedly bashes Mr. No-Name-No-Face’s face repetitively into the steel beige locker responsible for Sherlock’s forced, cranial harm. The cranium housing brilliance worth bounds more than Mr. No-Name-No-Face’s currently hypothetically-mutilated-and-gradually-decimating face beneath the force of John’s unrealistic, fantasy-induced, strong grip on his bastardly little noggin as he inflicts the unrelenting battery.

 

John takes a steadying breath and keeps his head low, face shaded as Sherlock slowly inhales once more through congested airways but makes no move away from John’s initially forced affections. John doesn’t make him. And thanks no one on account of Sherlock not bearing witness to the way his nose and lips twitch into a poorly-conserved snarl. His frown feels dangerous enough to bear. Sherlock didn’t need to see this, not if the aftershock of the assault still made him wary. It was unrealistic to place Sherlock on level with a troubled pedestrian, he’d scoff and raise a condescending brow at any such attempt and ask John if _he_ were troubled. But after all John has just witnessed he’d much rather not take the chance, lest he startle this…thing. This precious thing in all of it’s contrastively brazen and surprisingly fragile nature. No matter the little butterflies fluttering through his lungs with speed to rival a hummingbird’s. All in fear of the underlying _wrongness_ of it all. Begging to flitter past his lips and make him ask Sherlock in a wrecked voice of his own if he’s all right. Because he knows Sherlock would say it until his face turned blue.

 

In foresight, that wouldn’t be the best of ideas. Apart from it being painfully selfish it would also burst whatever notion Sherlock had ever harbored of him not being an utter moron, it was just plain wrong.

 

And so, John carefully slips his left hand underneath the pale chin currently propped on his sturdy shoulder as a mop of curly hair lilts lax against the side of John’s own head and obscures his vision, tickling his nose with finesse to mimic a feather-duster. A quiet little huff through his nose makes them flutter away momentarily as he lifts Sherlock’s face into view with tender fingertips. He was still crouched in a protective hunch of sorts and his knees were beginning to ache—but no matter. John needed to ensure Sherlock hadn’t been concussed. John could already feel himself slipping back into old doctor-like habits manifested over comical bickering on stem cell research controversy and public prostitution being masked by the pretentious logo of ‘Chat-Line’, clearly smothering crime in legality. ‘ _I mean, clearly_.’ All in the span of three days. But this feels more intimate, in a way it was and wasn’t during admonishments of poor regimen and sleeping habit. John couldn’t help but notice, as his thumb smoothens over a prominent, down-turned cheekbone. Encouraging the boy to look him in the eye with quiet care and careful urgency all good doctors knew to coax. This bubble of sorts allows John to touch, the afterglow or after-gloom letting him touch this untouchable being. It’s almost scary in a way, in a pathetically liberating and underlyingly transfixing way.

 

John can hear the bubble’s loud and sharp pop the moment Sherlock’s face lifts to view. The red and thinly coagulated crescents pressed into pale the skin of his jaw far more concerning than the audible metaphor. And John has to aim his gaze at the narrow-tile floor at the startled gasp he emits that makes his chest quiver. This was an overreaction, John knows.  John knows the brief flash of scalding wrath that washes through him and makes his hair stand on end should not be _his_.

 

Oh but it is. It was a little confusing and more than a bit alarming, possibly even labeled him as squeamish. Which he very much was _not._ Long since calloused from the _many_ gruesome photographs he’s been required to commit to memory, every pus dribbling puncture and abraded rash ingrained into his very _corneas_.  But--You see, the very prospect of one’s own barrier being encroached upon in such callous—perhaps jeering--, domineer, of any thing beyond exterior, any thing just past epidermis, the several fragile layers that have woven to welcome and microscopically thread together throughout years and inevitable years of thrilled and despaired growth, all to protect what lay just beneath. Several harrowingly delicate layers that allow its inner-titan to make morning coffee without thin sheets of tendon sheathing frail bone and knuckle erupting in mind-boggling pain, that allow a kiss from a lover without sanguinary residue, that prevent clothing from sticking to slimy, bare muscle and jolting raw nerve fibers from the cotton kissing fully excoriated physique.

 

Is horrifying.

 

Is gone.

 

And while it may be _Sherlock’s_ possible mocking and subconscious flicker of unadulterated gore-ish horror in lieu of _John’s own_ …well. That might have just made John’s rather tip-of-the-iceberg ire and lack-of-understanding induced gastrointestinal distress a tad worse.

 

John let’s his hand rest on a bony shoulder as he—ah _, collects_ himself against the unprecedented-as-it-is-unknown, nanosecond-long sensation, letting out a small, choked off sound as he does so. Quickly smothering it with a show of clearing his throat as the idea of scaring Sherlock by making him think his face gave him the reaction it did—well it _did_ but it wasn’t worthy of _that for god’s sake—_ rears. And gives his head a teensy, sharp shake and squeezes his eyes tight, then smoothens his face calmly, reassuring. All in the span of a second. Only to find it useless as he peers up to find the slouching, taller boy looking past his shoulder with a disconcertingly blank look on his face. The light filtering past in geometrical planes of bright color over his features not earing a mere flinch or flicker of iris.  So similar to his general demeanor one wouldn’t tell the difference, but to John’s astute eye he was different. Far different. From the diminutive drooping of pale lids veined with burst capillaries and shoulders riding low on pompous, silver-wit. He wasn’t thinking either, John doesn't know how, but he could tell. There was no scrunch to his carefully groomed eyebrows indicating deep concentration and ever-deepening stupor, no lids shut-tight to keep his prim calculation concealed from the painfully disproportionate world he found so dull yet worthy of everyday brooding.

 

Nothing. His eyes were dead, guarded probably, as the boy would rather die screaming than express anything more than a sardonic titter. Grey and cold like the polluted snowfall John remembers spitting out during laps after the metallic taste had settled on his tongue. Consequential to earlier childish action and rejuvenating an ever-paling expectation of a better tomorrow.

 

Setting his jaw as his eyes water at the sudden realization that settles like a brick in his lower intestine, John reaches forward to shield Sherlock’s cool gaze from the light and tries to ignore the way the look appears a twin of the dulled glare his father sported when he told John, to so eloquently quote ‘fuck off’ on a crowed slur with a swerve of rich, sloshing bourbon. The 12 year bitter nectar seeming suddenly cheapened by its consumer’s classless consumption with a unseemly flick of supposedly-sluggish wrist. Always pissed off his ass but always sober enough to make the drink’s flawless toss-back. Always needed to keep going, inebriation not standing a chance against his— _not now_.

 

Sherlock seems no less inviting though. And that quells John’s conditioned hesitance conjured from the memory long enough to note the due dilation from the shade created by his left palm. Then removes it to allow the abrupt glare of yellow street light to flood Sherlock’s visual senses. Sherlock takes the opiate assault in silence. John’s sigh of relief being the only sound to break the dank atmosphere as he sits back on his heels to assess the creature curled in a small crouch of compact, lanky limbs.

 

“Come on,” John says as he hauls himself to his feet, clipped and casual as if he hasn’t just witnessed one of the most conflicting situations of his time here on grand mother earth, lookin’ swell. Headmaster’s going to get an earful from 'over-protective-as-he-is-overbearing' Mycroft Holmes, John could tell right now. And he’d be there to mimic every accusatory inflection to the best of his ability. If only he could measure up to the baritone that _seemingly_ ran through the Holmes line, the assumption gleaned from the low tones heard through Sherlock’s mobile during their near-daily quarrel.

 

“If we’re lucky, you haven’t left a tube full of god-knows-what out to explode in our faces when we get back. Or maybe half the university’s already burning down as we speak.” He opts to diffuse with a light chastise. John wasn’t normally much of a talker, but he’d found it was a rather efficient way to fill the silence when mum’s eyes started sagging at the edges when she stared at the grandfather clock--dad had picked the rickety planks of ticking wood up from the thrift-shop as some poverty-stricken gift for her--and hoped for a freer tomorrow. 

 

“It’s called a _beaker_.” The ball, no longer le beanpole, corrects him. His usual prim timbre now sports and underlying, tired cadence. John eyes the crown of inky curls patiently, as it’s the only thing he can see, really--the boy was practically _drowning_ in the hoodie half the time—and holds out a hand. Knowing Sherlock could see the offered appendage from the shadow of it casted over the floor he seemed so riveted by. “That’s not a _no_.”

 

The ball stays still, and before John can reiterate his request or say fuck it and haul Sherlock over his shoulder like James Bond and Carrie back to their dorm so he can disinfect the head wound and nail marks—which will sting like a bitch because of some battering bitch and John _really_ needs to stop with all this angry anger because anger fucks with your stomach and that kick-starts inflammation and he can’t handle disease right now. Not when this poor boy needs help of his own—and John also _really_ needed to stop labelling this boy as poor because he’s had a moment of weakness, John may get murdered. Sherlock would _see_ his concern --because he sees _everything_ and _nothing is safe,_ not even John’s _pants so what if he likes pink cupcakes?--,_ and probably poison him with a plant. _Get it together—_

 

Thin fingers delicately slide into his palm to grip John’s hand, the action almost shy as his head remained low. John nearly shivers from the temperature of it and recalls how taller people suffer from low blood pressure. And grips the chilled hand back in his warmer one just a little harder, not tight but sure, feeling fragile knuckles shift beneath his as he does so and moves to pull. The hand twitches, and is suddenly ripped away with a slight little sound, a soft, equally startled gasp making John go a little cold as he holds his own hand away in case it were still causing Sherlock pain from a distance.

 

“What’s wrong?” John asks, perhaps a bit too urgently as his eyes flick over the pained appendage being cradled by Sherlock’s other hand. And notices the red skin, looking tender and irritated. Bruises on hands or other tibia-like areas generally take around a few hours to show so there would be some definite bruising telling from the hue. No ruptured vein blocked by cracked bone, nor paling or bluish green discoloration from fractures. Thank god, he could do without a late-night visit to some chilly hospital in the middle of fucking nowhere.

 

John blows out a breath and decides to be indulgent in macabre fantasy much much later, and represses the inappropriate urge to interrogate. Even as the curiosity burns, he needed to know who did this. Couldn’t have someone like that swaggering down the halls, he rationalizes, it was dangerous. And they needed to be reprimanded.  “Let’s get some ice before the swelling starts.” He offers with raised brows, utterly unimpressed with himself at the moment but still glad to maintain his patience. Not that it was hard to, surprisingly enough. “There’s an instant ice pack under the cot?”

 

A nod and flex of the uninjured hand. And Sherlock’s up and using his left hand as leverage against the locker to rise. Shaky legs probably asleep and twitchy static, making him look terribly awkward. An awkward, wobbly thing with red-rimmed, blue-ringed eyes. Sherlock would spit on himself. It’s vulnerable and uncanny and makes something stern yet soft stiffen his spine and shoulders. John wonders if this is what soldiers felt when they hurled themselves into war under the conditioned yet pit-less falsehood of protecting their loved ones from other soldiers doing exactly that. John exhales, eyeing him patiently and considers asking to carry him again. It would get them back faster and John wouldn’t really mind an excuse to touch him again. It felt …nice. Forbidden and vaguely terrifying but nice.

 

Instead, John crosses the twelve inches of space separating them and grips Sherlock’s wrist, slipping the lanky, left arm over his shoulders in one swift motion. After recalling how Sherlock refused to be consoled until he truly had no choice and had literally exploded into a coup de grace of unprecedented hysterics. Like hell the stubborn bastard would ask for anything more—probably under the moronic notion that John wouldn’t mind mollycoddling the contrastively daft creature with something akin to liberated wonder--, or accept anything as emasculating as being carried bridal-style down the corridor like a princess. Or maybe a _queen_? Hm.

 

“I got you take-out.”

 

A exhaust-laden claim poorly repressing a slur makes John’s eyes sharpen from their previously thoughtful, glassy state.

 

“Pardon?” John retorts, not really all there as he pulls Sherlock’s flank to his. Marveling at how a waist could be so small and such a tall figure so light. Could he haul Sherlock off the ground while holding him beneath his right arm? Dear God, John’s inner nutritionist was screaming in awed horror at the horrors these hoodies hid. John knows some people have faster metabolisms, naturally lithe physiques, but it was still more than a bit unnerving to feel ribs through three layers of clothing, all right? His nonexistent diet wasn't exactly reassuring either.

 

“Take-out.” Sherlock mutters into his hair as his cheek leans against the top of his head, John feels warm breath wash over his crown. Sherlock was doing that a lot, just how far gone was he? John fights the urge to double-check for a concussion and decides to get him straight to bed so John can stare at his ceiling all night and contemplate how to approach the subject with a sober Sherlock tomorrow and ask the him for the sod’s name without sounding like an aspiring serial killer.  

 

When a thought occurs. Sherlock’s bed flashes to the forefront of his vertical plate, its scattered order resembling a hoarder with OCD and far too many classes and/or hobbies than healthy. Jesus, had the guy even slept a wink since he’d gotten here? John couldn’t normally recall much after flopping face-first onto a pile of unfolded laundry warm from the sun glaring through his windowpane while he’d been slaving away in class, reciting gonorrhea to feminists all day. Not indulging in blissful unawareness was _anarchy_.

 

Sherlock stumbles again and John tightens his grip, fully prepared to strap him into bed if Sherlock resisted mandatory rest. While doubting he’d need to. And disparaging that fact alone. The whole scenario closely resembled a night on the town gone wrong and ending in a drunken stumble back home. Despite residing at university. “I got you some.”

 

John brushes a thumb over Sherlock’s side before thinking better of the intimate gesture. Not that it was intended to be intimate. It was just easy, everything still felt so surreal, John was sure he would wake up screaming soon.

 

Instead he hums and carefully slots the tip of his shoe through both of the bag’s handles and lifts it high enough to grab it. Somehow balancing Sherlock’s slightly slumped form and himself on a foot to avoid bending over and risking bashing Sherlock’s head into the lockers again. John had lost his appetite a while ago but the kind gesture wasn’t lost on him, if a bit unexpected. He was inordinately touched nonetheless. Sherlock exhales at the movement and grips a shoulder in turn, stands straighter, and squints before blinking. Attempting to clear his blurry gaze. John waits. Sherlock gives him an awaited nudge, and they amble.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 _“oof.”_   A soft, disgruntled noise exhales in surprise as John drops Sherlock onto his mattress instead of…whatever Sherlock’s was supposed to be. Hard to tell, through the eerie umbra casted over the dorm, thin slivers of light peeking through closed blinds not doing much and only serving to make their floor look like zebra’s skin. Everything seemed dark, alien and misshapen. If he were six he’d probably cry at the shadowed lamp’s head hovering over the back of his desk-chair and wail about an evil cyclops. Perfect timing for their only light-source to burn out, truly superb. At least John managed to situate Sherlock before the untimely blackout.

 

“Ah, sorry.” John drones a bit and blindly pats an arm, reasonably dog-tired down to his bones by now. Between their awkward trek back in silence after Sherlock’s butt-attempt at lightening the mood by informing him of how their intimate position would go seen and gossiped about by the entirety of the surveillance crew—and later the entire university—and John’s immediate, irate, exhaustion-induced ‘Good.’ , a rather poor abscond attempt to escape heinous hydrogen peroxide swabs from reaching their sanguinary destination and an even more brutal tackle to the fucking bed—nearly hitting the floor, god damn this guy was death on legs—though it was more of a fortunate trip over something that sounded dangerous and allowed John a _hardly needed_ upper-hand to wrestle the half-delirious twat muttering about students and microbes to the cot to treat him.

John just wanted to die for 16 hours. Be it beside Satan or his spawn he would be too dead to care.

A glance at his alarm clock leaves him sighing, or a quiet sob-- he can’t tell. And proves for a disheartening, ensured 5 hours rest as a neon green ‘1:00 am’ blinks back from his nightstand. John slips off his stupid jumper and sweater, his muscles scream in burning retaliation from earlier rugby practice and casual belated-heroism at the motion, leaving him in thankfully loose jeans and a grey long-sleeved under-thing thing he doesn’t remember the name of. Some kind of shirt. Whatever. And kicks off his shoes.

 

“Scoot.” John demands tiredly, trying to give it some bite and somehow will the slumped silhouette away before he just decides to crush it beneath him and make it stop breathing and giving him prospective heart-attacks. But that would be counterproductive. So John waits approximately two seconds before he scoots Sherlock over himself. Albeit carefully. Lest Sherlock have more injuries than he let on—(the tackle had been necessary, all right?) And marvels somewhere subdued and muted at the back of his mind. At how soft and pliant the terrifyingly cold and horribly transfixing guy felt against his gentle maneuvering. Sherlock lets out a displeased, not pained, whine as John prods his fingertips against the side of his torso to push him closer to the wall. Stubbornly keeping his curly crown and lower half in place. The position left him looking like a giant, sprawled cat at a malleable arch. It was ridiculously immature. And somehow a little endearing, notwithstanding John’s crippling exhaustion and drunken yearning for time-travel.

 

John’s tongue clicks on its own accord, though the appendage seemed tired too. And exhales down at nimble feline seemingly made of rubber. Seemingly uncaring of his very close roommate practically fondling him to the wall after tossing him onto his bed. Seemingly unaware of any and all implications this would pose to the greater public.

 

His cheeks are burning and he is not the greater public. Which was stupid. He’s had sleepovers before, not in his own bed but in others when he was a child. But that shouldn’t make a difference. He wasn’t allowed to have friends over of course, wouldn’t want them over either. Mother allotted him that one pleasure any time it made itself free-- This was no different, really. Point being, Sherlock looks sufficiently far past caring. And John wasn’t too enthused to pull an all-nighter or take his chances on moving whatever claimed Sherlock’s bed and possibly losing a limb because of acid or the tomorrow-coherent wrath of Sherlock for messing with his things or something.

 

So, with sleep’s adamant little claws tugging at his lids and a shy purse to his lips, John ignores the tickly fluttering in his stomach as he grips a bony shoulder and hip, somehow prominent beneath the soft hoodie—or maybe he was gripping too hard. Scooting them over to meet their middle like some kind of weird puzzle in one swift, self-conscious motion. And earns a rather feeble groan and sluggish retreat. Then, an abruptly flamboyant and startlingly sober flip turning his back to John-- making him momentarily resemble a fish-- and a rather rough pull of his hood over his head seem characteristically forbidding.

 

John squints at it for a second. Feels a small huff tickle past his lungs and through a tiny grin. Then blinks, feeling the stress straightening his back, wrung tight through his spine like wire abruptly unwind to a lax at the bratty little act. John hadn’t even noticed how tense he’d been until now. Breathing in at the much appreciated calm. He rolls his shoulders, feeling the blades tense and ease with a divine little crack. Then slides in, legs-first, beneath his cushy, grey comforter with a scratchy susurrus of jean and cotton. Keeping his distance even as a shiver wracks him from his spine to his toes. The room was unsurprisingly drafty. As it wasn’t his first rodeo here anymore, cool air leaked through their cheaply insulated walls on-the-nightly. The windows bore a physically painful resemblance to two portals wreaking the room with frigid air from the north and south pole. If cold were visible without the assistance of a damp mouth, John would bet no quid that a mist would obscure their hardwood floor like that American movie, The Fog was it? And is suddenly blessed with a lick of sense.

 

John does not _shoot up_ like a dead man forgetting a date, he rises calmly and reaches for the foot of the bed. No matter his back’s protest. Fucking Kyle. And feels around the end of the cot, searching in near darkness for what he’d folded and placed there not three hours ago. Accidentally grabbing a converse sneaker, making it still. And apologizing with a uselessly whispered _“sorry.”,_ until he finally leans back with his woolen prize.

 

He turns, whips it open, letting the blanket unfurl from its artfully folded state over his side of the duvet. And doesn’t hesitate in throwing it over the stupid genius shivering beside him. John pauses for a moment, still holding the tips of the woven, indigo edging above Sherlock’s waist.

 

John rolls his eyes into darkness at the boy’s unexpected humility, frowning down at the quiet chitter of teeth clattering. The guy could steal his hair product under the excuse of its compensation for petroleum jelly because he was out of kerosene and 'needed fire’, but he couldn’t borrow a blanket when he was freezing to death. Even after he was literally tackled into the spectacle.

 

A niggling fondness at the abrupt quirk was inevitable. And soon enough John found himself grinning a little through his sleepy daze. Perhaps this could merit an addendum, three days of exposure would make for a lengthy blockbuster already. Chapter six: The dead-pan, posh princess and the dull-as-dishwater, delayed pauper.

 

Delayed. The word has been nipping at him for a while now. Despite commonsense dictating the prediction of an untimely affair would have been bonkers, but damn if he couldn’t kick the guilt for the life of him. God, he was so tired.

 

Gaze growing a bit blurred now, John settles back and feels something unpleasant spike low in his sternum. With a swallow, he pulls the blanket’s edge to level with Sherlock’s tremoring shoulders. Then rests his palm on the boy’s lightly quivering upper-arm. Now covered in another layer and hopefully preserving warmth. But not enough warmth.

 

John pauses politely and awaits unlikely retaliation. When none comes, he promptly gives the appendage a few warming rubs. Just like his mother used to do. Be it to reassure him after a rather brutal fallout with a classmate or something or other. Perhaps a mollycoddling. But he remembers feeling his initial indignant protests of ‘being a big boy’ and embarrassment melt away with her soothing caress, the insistent strokes slipping over his back and arms leaving him warm, knowing she would do it when no one else much cared to. Knowing the effort made her arms sore, yet that she did it gladly. The knowledge itself was warming in more ways than one.

 

If Sherlock stiffened at first, John didn’t notice. What he does note is the way Sherlock’s breathing gradually deepens in time with his hands. John doesn’t even know if Sherlock is asleep and he’s just massaging a corpse unable to protest. Nor does he let it deter him.

 

John blinks blearily and slides a firm hand up and along the middle of Sherlock’s back, feeling the knobs in Sherlock’s spine ridge beneath his fingertips. Silently mouthing their names as he goes, John skews his hand over to run the heel of his hand over a sharp shoulder blade, later rimming the lower edge of the scapula with a slow knead of his thumb. Willing rigid muscle to relax its skeletal substructure with his ministrations.

After it’s worked to a sufficient emollient, he guides dexterous fingers up and along the willowy creature’s upper back with solid palpation all doctors must learn to master when examining a patient for abnormal tissue growth. He shifts onto his side, propping his chin on his left hand. And reaches up to skim the length of Sherlock’s trapezius m with light but sure pressure of his middle and forefinger. Daring a quick three strokes over Sherlock’s sternocleidomastoid, given courage from the inability to discern his reaction from the hoodie’s conceal and the lack of squawking. The stiff tendon of Sherlock’s neck gradually eases its tense lock.

Sherlock then exhales a very much not asleep breath. Practically melts into the mattress far more than already thought possible, and tilts his head farther into John’s red travel-pillow. Allotting him a better angle at his neck. John pauses at the movement, unsure if Sherlock was asking him to stop or not.

“Please keep doing that.”

 

The breathy request sounded more like a demand. A dozy one at that, and John feels a sudden spark of pride at the lulling effect his massage had in a mere few minutes. John complies to the demand regardless, and relieved. It was… the least he could do.

 

With a quiet inhale through his nose, he removes the hand propping up his chin to slump onto his side. Left side of his face smushed into his pillow. Apparently sound in his confidence that Sherlock wouldn’t suddenly flip off the bed and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. John resumes as requested. Sliding his entire hand over from Sherlock’s sternocleidomastoid and down the delicate slope of his shoulder, moving lower to a no-longer-quivering tricep. Good, he was warm now then. Through the darkness of the room he can discern, as well as feel, slumped shoulders of a figure. Pretty much just a mound of clothing and blanket, a few inches from his nose. And the ache that had momentarily plagued his chest earlier has all but morphed into a steadily seeping calm. Sherlock is right here. His heart beats an unwavering thrum beneath his hand. The door is locked and the world is dead to them.

 

John closes his eyes against the blurry shadows--as they were beginning to feel like sandpaper with his every blink-- resists the urge to rest his forehead against Sherlock’s upper-back, and doesn’t recall stopping.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait. I attempted to hint at John's less-than-seemly past and how Sherlock's distress acted as a sort of trigger. How it managed elicit memory and slight trauma from a vulnerable past. And how he weaved it to his bidding, to his choice. In short, how John manipulated good and not-so-good influence and his susceptibly pivotal upbringing to do what it should and shouldn't have done. 
> 
> Tell me what you think. :)


	7. Dissolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I may have gotten a little carried away... you're welcome.

 

 

 

 

John wakes up.

 

London’s traffic a steady hum against sleep, living near central London meant a front seat to its urban song at all hours, the static and buzzing in his ears, spliced with many a dissonant vendor, bus or chattering group—be them screeching into their mobile for child support or rent due last week are thankfully but a muted whoosh with occasional, diminutive peaks.

 

The first thing he registers is pale, washed out sunlight—courtesy of a dank sky fading into ozone, bleeding purplish hues that fade into crisp powder blue into gray down the city’s vastly edifice-littered skyline. The modern view patently visible from the fourth floor between open blinds, and sun nowhere in sight. The dim illumination cast over the gray comforter brushing his nose, level with his head, if not for the plush pillow it rested on. The crinkly pillowcase slightly obscures his left eye’s blurry vision.

 

John blinks again, feeling his eyes clear of the dead cells somewhat, his head still tranquil and heavy. Making him never want to move, just stay there until the blissful sluggishness ceased into a bright impetus of motivation. The second thing he registers are two keen eyes, shaded the subtlest of pastels and blue in ice. The light irises muted and relaxed in appearance, in effect of half-shut lids.  Sherlock is staring at him. His head tilted into the U of John’s travel pillow, bangs a whirl of inky disarray artfully swept over his forehead as he peers through them at John, his arms shyly curled in on himself.

 

The position almost coquettish, if John didn’t know any better. He wonders if he should be alarmed at the apparent stare, though he only ponders the strangeness of it with a fleeting frown, eyes tracing over slender shoulders hunched and crimped up to level on either side of a sharp jaw. Contours shapely despite his features looking soft in appearance. Serene, pliant and mellow. It makes something slow and warm bloom in John’s chest through his groggy daze. So he grins back, feeling like he’s missing something terribly important but not terribly urgent. And still pleased to have this sweetly scary boy in his bed looking at him like that.

 

“Happy birthday,” John mumbles with a slight rasp as the reminder pops in his head like a twitter notification. Rubs a sluggish fist over his eye, then the heel of his hand over his other eye.

 

And blinks as his hand is slowly eased from his control, a warm thumb brushes the underside of his wrist as it’s moved,  coaxing his bleeding calm with a hesitant sort of determination. Warm, slender fingers come up to rest over the lightly fisted ones of his right hand with care. Their laxly joined hands crumple the rustled bedding between them upon their swift descent with a quiet little pat.

He expects his heart to pick up pace, to skip, maybe a lick of confusion on as to “why” such an uncharacteristically intimate action deemed itself acceptable in the eyes of Sir John-how-the-bloody-hell-can-you-stomach-such-Don-Quixote-rubbish (As it would turn out, John’s romanticism novel stash wasn’t even safe beneath three boxes and a bed.) or acceptable to himself as well.

 

But all he can feel is an unadulterated calm settling deep in his bones, light curiosity and a muted familiarity that held no residence in reality. The deft fingers set about observing his palms while their owner’s soft-hued eyes endeavor the same. Tracing feather-light fingertips over the short indents of John’s lifelines with his left hand, the soft touch later felt along the opposingly calloused fingertips of his other hand. John feels a fond flicker of envy, how was it that a boy who found such joy in setting steel wool alight with a frankly disturbing disregard for his main mechanics and safety gear pose such a soft touch?

 

Briefly bringing their hands palm-to-palm and allowing John a rather clear view of their size difference. Sherlock glides his lower and over the back of his hand, as John had taken on a similar slouch at the intimate action and bent his arms at a similar angle to Sherlock’s own, to brush along his upper wrist. When had that happened, again? John frowns lightly and resumes his watch on his friend’s ministrations. Over his ulna, John recites faintly, the world still a subdued lilt beyond a placid haze. Fingers form a lightly stiff touch to slide up his forearm, a slight tickle never giving way to a giggle. Just a soundly tender caress as it glides over the fabric of his thermal and higher. The soft graze comes to a rest on his bicep and slides down once more. Small brushes of thumb punctuate light pauses to soothe on their repetitive, gentle journey. Indulgent and infinitely patient, awaiting nothing and merely doing. John can’t help but fleetingly wonder if this was Sherlock repaying him for last night’s spiel.

 

After a moment, as John had almost nodded off at the rare care, Sherlock shuffles closer. His head now rests on the edge of John’s pillow, closer. A lot closer. Flecks of green stare back at him from an intricate orb of blue from beneath a shock of dark hair. Untamed.

And John notes their clasped hands with a delayed sort of interest. Sherlock blinks back, eyes still a calm droop as he observes him with a fond, awaiting interest. His mouth ever-so-slightly quirked at the corners.

 

As though John were a favored book approaching its climax after he’d been reading him for three hours straight while watercolors of vibrant, motorized light resplendent from beyond a coffee shop window flew past—time forgotten. John squeezes the bony hand in his own, pulls it closer to his heart, and tilts his head up a little to follow the movement calmly.

 

Bleary eyes zero in on a full cupid’s bow as a spark of something brief makes him far braver than he’s ever remembered feeling.

And so, John hears a stuttered inhale as he presses a mute kiss to full lips. Unsure of who emitted it. And wonders what his title would be if he could ask. The familiar, unprecedented warmth seeps through his core when a small, reciprocating pressure makes his heart melt at the edges. And he wonders, albeit dazedly if not a little worried if he could overflow.

 

 

John wakes up again.

 

 

This time to a warm ice pack clutched so tightly in his right hand it’s just short to bursting.

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 

 

  
Sherlock is hiding.

 

Yes, hiding. He’s valiant enough to admit. Hiding away in a small, surprisingly tidy and faintly-lit janitor’s closet while the poor souls coddling humanity’s next generation bustle about in their secrete-esque to wherever they see fit at the early hour. Their presence only made known from the shadows their footsteps cast from beneath the thin space of the 90-going-on-100, wooden door.

 

 

He couldn’t even hear the few, determined early-birds amble on over his thoughts. Space was minuscule but appreciable, thank a deity, he could even stretch his legs taut out if he decided to roll the Rubbermaid bucket-wringer to the left and into that unstable-looking crate. Could drink that bleach, too. Could. Sloshed mop-water he could do without. The fetal position wasn’t terribly uncomfortable either, rather helpful, yes. The closer body to mind and farther from John’s cuddly embrace the better.

Sherlock shivers at the memory or lack-there-of. No, not lack of memory—lack of information. Piteously nanoscale data. He couldn’t possibly forget…much of anything truly. Without a certain substance’s assistance, eidetic cons. Cons relevant to now being gastrointestinal distress and an instinctual ongoing crisis. He doesn’t know when he’s going to die, especially not its middle. Might as well entertain an ongoing crisis to be safe. Though if he chose to merit a full-blown Rubicon now he could off himself in another seventeen years. Perfect symmetry.

 His frown is so deep it hurts, his middle and forefingers dig into his temples while he does his damnedest to compute this-- this…this-- Sherlock vocalizes his frustration at the lack of term despite literary genius with a small “gah!”, pressing fingers harder into his skulls thinnest bone-structure. In hopes of a modicum of sense being pressed into its narrow mass and allotting him some blessed focus.

He has some concerns. The lilting lightbulb flickers its dullish yellow hue down at him once in agreement.

 Why: you ask?

 John Watson. Ipso facto.

 Well, not necessarily just him per se. Sherlock’s multitudinous cesspool of chaotic, hyperaware helplessness played a notable role as well. The steadily rising crescendo was reaching its mortifying climax, the aftermath of yesterday's spectacle now a crippling embarrassment, along with this… anxiousness that has always plagued his every vulnerability. Making him sick, the anticipation of a blow or heckle held no comfort in mere knowing, as it usually did. The initial fear of losing himself to his psychology or instinct was something god-awful, he lives for control. The loss of control never willing if he could or couldn’t help it. Even as realization dawned at the dreadfully irrepressible free-fall. Instinctual fight or flee stymied to snivels. Torture, bloody torture is what it was. People were nothing without control and it was nothing without him and that was that.

 

A fluctuating, _festering flux of a flunk_ is to blame.

 

There were two chances and two chances only to control himself. To repress. To not fail in his self-preserving venture.

Otherwise, he’d be a desperate, sniveling mess of aborted, weakened attempt after aborted, weakened attempt until he’d wrung himself dry. A gradual rise to achieve a certain level of calm and center was necessary between each try. This he’d learned by now, under rather extremely fleeting and developing circumstances. Panic is a lie. And Sherlock was out of practice, lesson flunked, and now all had failed. Leaving him flinching at the memory of a newfound Achilles heel as his stomach twists itself into tangible knots, making him wonder if he’d need surgery after the nauseating sensation abated.

 

The first attempt at sanity had been overridden by Anderson’s inherent imbecility, the physical stifle had been Anderson’s only taken advantage saving him admittedly brutal psychological damage. This was new and unprecedented, thus leaving Sherlock witlessly unprepared. His transport was of no concern to him on the daily, until someone else with unknown intention stepped up to ‘meddle’ for lack of a willingly better term.

 

His second attempt appeared sound in its leveled uprise and then rendered wholly futile by a few simple words and a kind gesture he’d seen in too many romantic drama previews to count. Sherlock may have been weakened by surprise, allotting his aspired calm to quiver and rupture. And it had, prematurely even, by roughly two minutes. Yet, strangely, the fear of letting go was not there. The conditioned terror had fizzed off like hemoglobin in hydrogen peroxide the moment John had decided to hold him, willingly touch him like a friend in need of comfort. Like a family, like a lover, like…someone close, apparently. Like someone of relevance to his person. Like he hadn’t given a rat's arse about the many rumors and offensive slurs spliced with Sherlock’s first name.

 

The embrace had been so desperate and sudden, as though John couldn’t have stopped himself from holding him if he tried. Did he try? Why didn’t he try?

 

Sherlock should have punched his throat in surprise, yet he had stilled, then wilted into the embrace like a sunflower deprived of its calling. (Maybe he was—No! Sanity! Rationality! Survival! Call upon them!) His arms yearning to grip John back just as desperately than befitting the circumstance. Thankfully, he refrained from that much, and allowed himself to be held throughout his quaking flaws for the first time since his elementary days co-hosted by his two favored patriarchal and matriarchal figures, and, at a time, a fraternal one as well.

 

It was pathetically opportunistic. What happened to his every new year’s resolution to not use lest he is used in turn? Horrifyingly enough, Sherlock feels his face burn in shame. And presses his cold hands over his hot cheeks with a modest little pat of admonition.

He’d gasped and heaved feeling and unnamed secrets to a boy that took it all blindly, not once appearing judging or questioning of its source. Took it in, even, like a drowning man gasping for air, and Sherlock the depraver. Not even Sherlock could ignore the obvious shitty-lining underlying his rather extravagant reaction to something so banal.

 

Which left him bereft in revelation. A prominent likelihood far too much of a…well, a prominent likelihood to be ignored.

Sherlock walks a thin line of sociopathy and his pathetic humanity. Inching along a very deep, very endless and very captivating if granted a thought too many depression. Though that was a notable side-effect of the overt awareness that felt as though it clung to him like a magnet to the iron in his blood. It could be de minimis, brought about by his mentality, hormones and an unconscious necessity for affection. So, perhaps contemplating bruises on a toddler's wrists or sleek metrosexuals who turn their noses up at unsanitary men who had it all and more just a few years ago like they themselves currently did wasn’t his brightest idea. 

 

The amplification of unconscious necessity (no—desire. Controllable.) evoked by what he subconsciously 'wouldn’t mind’ or ‘could tolerate’ that he would find frequently bubbling into rational everyday thought or musings in a not dissimilar manner. Which was out of his control, his bloody character, and his previously thought utterly insubstantial expectation for said ‘affection’.

Because, honestly, why would he bother with SUCH NEEDFUL thoughts if he weren’t being influenced by inherited genetics of a bleeding heart? It wasn’t him! The gleaned knowledge had been courtesy of ancestry.com. Analytical chemists and numerologists were, quite simply, wimps.

 

Loneliness, its hollow ebb would fill his pointless chest cavity, and it would feel full if it weren’t for a small sliver of light curling around the edge of a larger circle, an eclipse of sorts, sternly delineating black as no longer bright. It does not sneak upon him in his weaker times, nor spontaneously cry wanton pleas for attention with cynical jabs at his esteem or chosen regimen whenever his subconscious sees fit. Because not only does alone protect him, it is…him. He is brightest in his isolation. A drive like one he’s never experienced out of Mycroft’s first caravan grips him and makes him twitch, his mind is suddenly famished and starving for it. Its endless nature, its guiding texts and solid, solidarity is promisingly unrelenting in its quantity. Tranquil ripples are given life by his mind and his body only, manifesting a certain bubble of surreality in his ironically small room. A liberating safety, but also soft inspiration found in what most would call sad or, in more amusingly pathetic cases, torture.

 

It had been and was elementary, it still is.

 

Although, having what the majority of your very kind finds so terribly necessary of a prerogative rubbed in your face every time you step out the front door can become somewhat tiresome.

 

Immoral moral: Sherlock hadn’t been careful enough, and his crash left him far more exhausted than he thought possible. Sherlock couldn’t count a number of times he’d scoffed at the idea of emotional drain weighing him down on his hands and toes combined, but in that moment, he found he couldn’t imagine a day in the life of John Watson.

 

Funny. Sherlock would never have taken the morally prided jock, the doctor influenced by a solemn past that despised weakness, for an outreach type.

 

Sherlock had been a buggering fool.

 

And only then, only then had Sherlock finally, finally turned off. Regained the mask that fit so well but suddenly felt so wrong. Outwardly he had regained it, and that same, niggling voice that had urged him to breathe had whispered it useless. What was the point in reverting back to an unfeeling façade to hide a vulnerable truth after you’ve revealed it, given it over so fully to a ready hand, laid bare for all to see? Sherlock had done exactly that regardless, as he was unsure of what was supposed to happen next. Social cues were never his forte, the one time he’d needed them and hopefully the final.

 

But it was principle, it was easy to and he needed easy then, if only for a little while. Old habits died hard for the dead. Then John had hauled someone ¼ more than the height of his compact form back to their dorm with one arm, albeit with a care Sherlock never could have envisioned himself being on the receiving end of. It was nice, in a rather unorthodox way, but…pleasant. He wouldn’t mind if John found it necessary to give his own silly little brand of masochistic comfort again—And there it is again, shut it down already.

They’d arrived at the dormitory with Sherlock fully expecting to get flipped the bird and left to his own devices once John, in all of his exhausted and undoubtedly annoyed nature, was sure Sherlock wouldn’t get brutalized again. Just another righteous duty in the life of Mister Magnanimous.

 

But as it would turn out, John has taken a rather obsessive liking to stuttering Sherlock’s pivotal at the most unforeseen of times. Past an obscured haze of darkness and into physical recollection, Sherlock recalls John tossing him into bed—John’s actual, own bed—and willingly touching him once more. Not a mere pat on the arm or a reassuring shoulder squeeze Sherlock had witnessed performed by heteronormative men around the corridor. But intimacy, a massage succeeding in Sherlock vowing to never label John’s hands as burly again. They were careful, considerate things that stroked the only thing keeping his mind alight into ensured bliss.

 

Sherlock hadn’t counterintuitively influenced John with Bystander effect or stimulated some outreach-type complex that time. He had his back turned to John after a painfully abrupt turn to him after John’s fingers got just a bit too ticklish, a bit too close. Sherlock had barely held back a groan of unadulterated hurt at the movement, he was still tender from the Irish Green Shower incident—nothing more nothing less, not at all. Though John had soon soothed his pain away with benevolent hands that made Sherlock briefly reconsider his atheism.

It was an insistent pull that felt like an original stereotype. It loosened something else he hadn’t known he had.

It felt good.

 

So why? Why did his chest seize like Anderson’s fist at the memory of John’s care in lieu of his initial assault or causation of said care? Was he happy? Was he afraid? He had no reason to be either, did he not? Sherlock peers down at his right hand, idly picking at the pale bandage painted in yellow lamplight soberly wrapped around the wounded appendage with his left thumb and forefinger. There was no… ulterior motive? What could Sherlock possibly gift him for his ‘hospitality’ if that were the case? Perhaps…no…no?

 

Well, John had expressed great distaste for those who detested those who merited…certain preferences in turn. Sherlock could glean as much by the way John’s posture had stiffened in alarm as he assumed Sherlock thought him a homophobe.

 

And he had at first, quietly, as to not disturb their tolerant set-up. He read it in the way John went wary, then stiff at a strong, brazen tone that reeked of testosterone, superiority, and age as it called out with little regard to disturbing what they thought lesser folk.

 

This was not an issue, he hadn’t a care for activism nor feasible opinion since it would never effect him. Aside from John being the true psychic, Sherlock had little to fret over. To each their own, avoid confliction if you can, ego held no place in his own intimate stance and person. It made one blind, a see-what-you-want-to-see defect, so to speak. In short, it was aimless to seek understanding in a place where none was due, or expected.

 

Then John had laughed. Laughed when he’d been wry and cold, unfiltered and reckless of his inner-to-outer dialogue until it slipped past a tongue he hadn’t been sure was still in his mouth, he’d been so cold. Been.

 

His heart now beats an elevated staccato assaulting his core’s inner walls, the palpitations making him shake ever-so-slightly as he recalls John’s octopi-like snuggling anchoring him to his cot, the epidemic taking place not a few hours prior to now before Sherlock booked it to the janitor’s closet without changing his clothes. He’d squeezed Sherlock tighter, bringing him closer in a subconscious, gradual transition. On and not on John’s own accord. His stronger arms pulling Sherlock into his chest easily, enfolding him in a close hold until warm breath washed over Sherlock’s cheeks, the unanticipated proximity granting Sherlock a view of blond lashes delicately fluttering with dream. It was a balm to his already hazy confusion upon rising from the rare coma others called sleep. But then…

 

Ah.

 

Therein the problem lied.

 

Libido.

 

Sherlock mentally and physically chokes on the word.

 

Sherlock was an adolescent after all. Rather eschewed when messy indulgence and concupiscent affiliation with fellow juveniles came into play. Perhaps the alienation was too a much-needed safeguard to ride out his temporarily discombobulated hormones. It had worked handsomely as of late, though many a handsome face thrived here, Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to even bother with (dare) a glance. But what Sherlock hadn’t counted on was waking up to a healthy, fit, young, attractive boy with a kind face and equally open nature, (clad in tight cotton, no less). Who’s face didn’t darken in bitter anger—if only in exasperation tinged fondly at his ‘antics’? Pulling Sherlock’s bony form into his own enviable musculature by his shoulders. He’d had what his body desires, the object of his curiosity and stomach aches, right before his nose. And feeding an intrigue by succeeding the impossibly infamous undertaking of making Sherlock’s world question itself. The perplexity it provoked was nearly maddening in its quantity.

 

Perhaps Sherlock immediately being reduced to quivering mess of apprehensive shambles as he lay motionless in John’s arms shouldn’t have struck him as too surprising. Being homosexual was utterly unfair and utterly unfairly beyond his control. It’s a bit of an inside joke, now. Like his nest-like hair or spider fingers, all equally beyond his choice or ability to commandeer.

 

Even so, _those traits_ hadn’t made his face take on a heat smoldering enough to rival John’s breath, while he didn’t dare mimic the essential function. Fearing he’d wake John and face indubitably awkward consequences— he had still been awaiting the anticipated sock to the face since day one and had become suddenly resigned in a rather panicked fashion. Then fully blown into panicking as the situation continued to clarify itself mercilessly all the while. Stock-still and wide-eyed as confusion and pure panic pumped through his every eidolon, he’d thought.

 

Maybe the basement wasn’t such a terribly inconsiderable option.

 

But what was he supposed to say? _‘Headmaster, so sorry to bother you, but it would appear my very much flirtatiously heterosexual male roommate has awakened my nonexistent libido and just so happens to enjoy my company. And is so very, very contradicting in nature it manages to complement hyperinflation in a wholly un-ironic and vaguely disturbing way. Interesting and warming enough in itself, I know, but be a dear and move me to the basement? Oh, and send the rats my regards._ ’

 

No, he wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t. Lest Mycroft catch wind of it after an untimely visit to question his sudden switch of arrangement to a sodden, underground cot. It had been roughly two years since their last clash, but chances were no light matter. The snooping big-nose might do something petty like get John suspended or belatedly rejected under the piteous excuse of an unfortunate mix-up in the university’s corrupted system. Sherlock would never live it down. Nor allow such a driven student of accommodating nature to lose his much-needed chance after teetering on the brink of poverty for the entirety of his life. England needed more doctors similar in temperament to John. Sherlock would know. John wasn’t to blame, he was merely being a good… friend.

 

Sherlock squints at a half-empty bottle of Windex at the internal word. 

 

Bombshell, more like.

 

Well, at first. Now it’s congealed into a rather formidable iceberg he’s taken impressive care to steer clear of.

 

“Oh, god.”

 

Until now.

 

“No, no, nononononono—“ John, human-esque John, naïvely-loyal-to-a-conditioned-cause with smiles bright enough to burn eyes from plasma screens and in possession of a giving spirit so equanimous-ly bright as well it seems just shy of masochistic. Appears to have undertaken a sociopathic narcissist intimately aware of humanity’s ruthless system obscured by its own whim in a self-given advantage. Whom of which has also endeavored to remain as autonomous and passionately blacklisted as he could manage without being accused of practicing vivisection on babies. At his worst, Sherlock entertains the occasional sadistic streak on behalf of those rejecting rejectee's despite them all desiring the same, placidly exact, thing. (Efficacious brain cell usage, people, it’s not strictly arithmetic, don’t fret.)

 

Humans are selfish, merciless, terrifying, things whenever they may see it as regally righteous.

Just because they may harbor an affinity for creamy wool and allow their mothers to kiss their cheeks three times more than strictly necessary before they depart does not excuse such a vital facet. It simply does not.

 

Nor was Sherlock willing to forgo his freedom to dawdle about and oblige in hopes he’ll derive a bit of bloody dopamine, endorphins, serotonin or oxytocin for an endpoint he’s already foreseen.

 

Especially for something this….terminal. He has his sources, thank you.

 

“No. I will not submit.” A vehement whisper breaks the receding patter of morning rush bleeding beneath his wooden barricade. Sherlock clenches his hands into tight fists, determination flooding his limbic system and sparking in his chest. He won’t submit to such unvaried circumstance. It will be disadvantageous, a mistake, briefly blissing but prospectively pointless and then simply…painful. “unpleasant.”

 

“Mm, and to think chemistry was your forte—“

 

_“Ahhh!—agh!”_ A numbing burn, of what he assumes to be pain blooms in his right shoulder as it collides with a wooden shelf just behind, startled. A spare bucket topples off its wooden tower above him, a small clatter his only warning before the inner walls of the damned thing are smacking over his head and cracking his nose, painfully claiming his cranium as home. Just before he can get a good espy on the culprit of his disturbance, too.  “ _bloody buggering fu—”_

 

“Must suck to have it thrown back in your face. Doesn’t it, Holmes?” The Irishman resumes, a curl of amusement giving way to his slithering enjoyment. A door clicks to a close, resulting in Sherlock clumsily grabbing at the circlet of the cleaning supply crowning him as he hurriedly lifts it to look upon his intruder. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed listening to you crumble and crack over your supposed element. But I thought I’d join the party.” Ah, so he had been listening in, and only he would.

 

And there stood 5 feet and 6 inches of unalloyed madness dressed to the nines in crisp Givenchy and deliberate cruelty, eighteen years in the making now.

 

Jim Moriarty. Unassuming, precocity, and contempt thinly veiled in polite remarks nearly always alluding to someone’s deduced faults or general ineptitude beyond their notice. If only he weren’t unstable enough to entertain a madhouse of loonies, Sherlock may have responded to his ceaseless and occasionally cynicism-abating promptings during HIST 301. Still, he was manic, though. Quite the con to mind.

 

So, “You’re not invited.”

 

Jim visibly reads him like a book, and Sherlock doesn’t know whether he should remain wrathful or get grateful for a non-moron, mentally ill or not be damned.

 

“Seeing as the main attendee couldn’t make it past the halfway line this morning’s practice, I thought I’d fill in.”

 

This evokes a pause, as Sherlock minutely mulls over the double entendre blinking above the sleek reptile like a Nevadan cathedral sign. John’s name went without saying, infuriatingly enough. Sherlock found he rather didn’t wish to know the extent of Jim’s ridiculous connections. Mycroft would love him. Repugnant.

 

“Oh, don’t fret. I’m not one to impose.” Jim promptly smoothens with a grin as slick as his hair, the shebang of placating gesticulating with an outstretched palm succeeding only in making far more of a mockery than duly appreciated.

 

“If you can truly manage to believe such fallacious logic, then surely even you can see that you’re just a few sandwiches shy of a picnic.”

 

“Oh, but I adore picnics. They’re the bomb. And you know I love those just as well.” No twit, he’d been the talk of the cafeteria for a steady week after he’d accidentally flicked a Bunsen burner to 75 celsius with Mr. Moran’s arse. Their next substitute never quit after that, hell knew why.

 

“Ah! While we’re on that subject, let me ask. I’ve caught rather gusty wind of your imminent sugar-bombing. So, I thought I would drop in and ensure you were officially pathetic!” Jim kindly polishes off with a chirp and a little bounce on his Salvatore Ferragamo’s. It was a wonder Jim hadn’t gotten mugged yet. Else he had, and that was a viscous image Sherlock would much rather not prompt.

 

“Sugar-bombing?” He couldn’t have been able to suppress the tetchy indignation if he attempted. To hell with it. “You can’t just create words to fit your grammatical needs like some—some ornate deviant—“

 

“Oh, but I can, Shezza-Watson. I really can.” No, he really rather _couldn’t_ — “ _Aaaanyways_ , forgo my urban-defining insolence and answer me this, Mister Big-words.” Sherlock’s hearing sharpened to attention at the modicum of desperation shrilling the boy’s voice. He frowns and moves to press his hand against the wall at his right to stand. Wincing as his injured hand takes the brunt, though careless, Sherlock pushes past it—

 

Short-lived, however, as said ‘boy’ swoops down before him with a blatant disregard for personal space sparking just a little more wrath from between Sherlock’s lungs.

 

Leaning in, wide, dark eyes clinched disbelievingly at their corners and teeth bared, looking just short of a ‘why’ barking past. He grows a tad more unnerved as Jim folds his hands together between his crouched legs until his knuckles go white. Refrain? Frustration? Annoyance? Jim remains heedless of his curiosity as his aggrieved (ah!) glare bores into bored, pale gray. “Just this one teensy, itsy-bitsy thing.”

 

“Yes?” He drawls deliberately drone with an aimless try at gaining more than seven centimeters of space from the precarious prick.

 

Sherlock begins to truly feel a bored as his initial prediction steadily rings true with each word Jim has taken the unknown liberty to recite. Expect the unexpected indeed. Unexpected showing a 5% chance of physical assault in public domain and gleaned from Jim’s established bark-not-biter complex written in the care of the buttons on his pressed dress shirt. Lucky for Sherlock indeed, his hand and back were notably tender at the moment. Not an enemy, halt threat?

 

“ _Why are you losing?!”_ An exhorting snarl breaks past grit teeth, making Sherlock briefly shock back from the loud vociferation. Why would he allow such a scream to resound—ah, morning rush must have fully passed, no one to hear nor care given their convenient placement by the section of the corridor vacant of classrooms given its outdoor architecture. Janitor’s closets must have looked unattractive for razzmatazz in online advertisement.

 

Frozen, Sherlock stays still, save for his eye twitching in annoyance at the ringing in his ears from the ostentatious opening shout. Histrionic yet a primly prat. A tediously common contradiction. And here… we… go.

 

“You’ve metastasized into this piteous, anthropomorphic ignoramus! Have you forgotten what they are? They’re chancers, voiceless lemmings, all slaves to their eternally eroding perspectives and actions built upon nothing but their almighty mood. Judgments hastily made that are only befitting what little irritant they decide can justify their inevitable dislike of you with! It doesn’t matter, the very moment they experience the slightest discomfort or you implore them to make the slightest of inquiries, maybe take a look in their oversized mirror—they suddenly just can’t do it anymore. Regardless of you, much less of your efforts or whatever say you may have in the given, no doubt boring, matter. You know what they say, YOLO! It’s outdated gospel for crying out loud.”

 

The point comes punctual and sharp, and all Sherlock can do is sit back and let him give him a run-down on the obvious, idly wondering if Jim even breathed. So Sherlock listens aggrieved in turn, though he needn’t liquid nitrogen in his water bottle in some petty act of revenge if he decided to walk out. Which he would very much like to, he could deduce what Jim had eaten this morning from what little distance separated them. Raisin Bran. Jim really was far-gone, indeed.

 

“Users, users, Sherlock.” With a beseeching coo, Jim’s hands come up to clasp his shoulders in a consoling manner befitting a belligerent toddler that is, ironically, Jim himself. Sherlock remains still at the intrusion, settling to regard him with a sarcastic tilt of his head to beckon Jim to resume rambling about what he clearly deemed clear as day on his own.

 

But Jim frowns, his eyes flick across to either side of his face, the motion so quick Sherlock imagines he imagined it.

 

Back down the rabbit hole, we go. “All of them, you know this. They use you until they get bored. And there’s a notion. You aren’t ordinary, dear-heart but I’m beginning to doubt your self-control when it comes to choosing not rolling around in plainly daft disease.” Aggravation underlines the tone of skepticism. The disbelief contorting Jim’s expression now morphs into faux-resignation and disappointment, but the disappointment is as honest as his insanity. And Sherlock is strangely touched from a rather pitying frame of reference. Poor boy, slipping through a constant grapple for control of both a thought and an emotion? Hellish, simply hellish. “It’s textbook!”

 

Though being labeled as unable to tell his forehead from his diencephalon was remarkably rude. “Pardon my untimely interruption, but where the hell have you derived this fanciful notion of this swooning-maiden apropos applying to me?” Sherlock’s eyes feel dry, probably due to the fact Jim has taken on a similar speaking pattern to a jet engine or from his own intrinsic habit of jolting awake after going in REM for four to six hours is acting up. Sherlock scrubs his eyes roughly and grimaces at Jim’s face in distaste.

 

“Oh, it may as well be written on your forehead in rainbow sharpie.” Jim slack face abruptly sneers as he flicks Sherlock’s forehead for reference. Teasing, anger is slightly receding. Escape.

 

With a growl of warning, an implication of ‘you’re pushing it’ ringing silently through the air, Sherlock bats the hand aside and shrugs off the other hand still present on his shoulder. Nettlesome enough, it stays. “What is?”

 

“I know, how about ‘Hi, I’m as straight as my hair and watch The Plague Dogs on lonely nights to stay grateful—.”

 

“All right, all right that is quite enough.” Sherlock pushes the tops of Jim’s knees where they barricade either side of him, lightly taking him off what little balance he had maintained on the balls of his feet as he lands on his butt. What was it with psychopaths and his hair, honestly?

 

Jim meets his eye with a wholly ridiculous jut of his lower lip, somehow looking far too serious all the while, even from his residency on the marble floor in front of him. And asks sternly as he shoots back up to stand, Sherlock moves to rise and exit leaving him undeterred.

 

“So, just to clarify for the sake of my delicate sensibilities,”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes so intensely a tiny flicker of pain shocks in his temples, and remains, even as he moves to brush off the thick layer of dust coating his trousers like paramagnetic particles, and sneezes.

 

“Aw,” Jim sneers with a vaguely hysteric grin that even Sherlock can’t place the emotions it attempts to express. “you’re so cute and feeble when you sneeze—“

 

“Quiet, pest—”

 

“Almost like a sighing schoolgirl weak in the knees for Jonny Wilkinson!“

 

“I haven’t the slightest what you mean.”

 

Jim sighs at the pointless evasion and leans against the exit, hand coming up to grip the door knob at a rest. “Damn it, Sherly, I can smell your raging ovaries from here.”

 

Sherlock’s brow twitches. Liar. Sex pheromones dissipated within roughly three to five hours after coitus. Nor had he even… engaged in the repulsive practice...

 

Or _owned ovaries for that matter_.

 

“It’s sulfur dioxide, and there’s no need to flatter yourself either, sugar-bomb.”

 

An impasse is met, icy blue growing glacial as black glints back in condescending admonition.

 

“ _Welp,”_ Jim concedes, popping the ‘p’. “Daddy’s got some errands to run,” He lilts in a rib, falling back into rhythm with his accommodating façade lazily wielded for a precedently lazy audience. A nanoscale tic in his jaw as he peeks at the bandage covering Sherlock’s frail hand is well-hidden by an impromptu grin.

 

“Say hello to Spongebob for me.” Jim opens the door, stood aside and posing with all the poise of a Victorian butler as he beckons Sherlock to exit distractedly. His pale thumb already swiping rapidly across his lock-screen to type in a passcode that would take an (unfathomable for most) considerable timespan to crack.

 

Sherlock hauls his bookbag over his shoulder, just a tad haughty at being caught out and lectured by Isaac Newton’s disorders all given a vessel. Newton’s apparent complex who has also seemed to have developed an affinity for him in whatever mad intricacies that had sprung the moment Jim caught his eye inquisitively last autumn. His excitement had been palpable from 10 yards away as Sherlock rattled off the teacher’s affair with a student from the braces’ marks prominent in his poorly concealed hickeys. In spite of whatever solidarity Jim may have found in him, he would receive little reciprocation on the sentiment.

 

And so, Sherlock steps out of the occluding closet for the first time in an hour. Going by the time on the minuscule London Clock Tower ticking away in his wristwatch.

 

And stumbles forward as a Salvatore Ferragamo to the arse nearly sends him sprawling to the ground.

 

“Heads up, butts down and don’t you forget it!” Is the closing shout, an equally ostentatious one to its opener. Predictable bastar—

A door slams, the door’s locking mechanism obliges loudly with a slick ‘clickclack’ behind him. Bleakly blocking out triumphant, if not a little manic, cackling.

 

With a curl of his upper lip, Sherlock kicks the door, succeeding in only erupting yet a stronger roar of guffaws, and stomps off to homeroom in rebellion of the limp Jim knew he now harbored.

 

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 

 

 

“John. Hey, John…. Hello?”

 

_“pssst.”_

 

“Johnny. Hey, John.”

 

Two voices join Mike’s initial soliloquy, morphing into an unabating trilogy, mercilessly heedless of their captain’s blatant turmoil as he hunches over his knees on the damp bench in the field’s locker room. John had attempted to tie his laces, once, but ultimately decided to remain in his crestfallen position in hopes of quelling the gnawing cocktail of guilty anxiety that churned his stomach and made it so easy to think. A feeble groan of despair bleeds past his grimace as he keeps his head bowed.

 

_“psssssssssssssst_ —hey, mate.”

 

“John, John, hey. John—“

 

“John. John. Joooohn!”

 

“Johnnie, the Yankees are coming!”

 

Feeling just shy of a blood vessel bursting, John grits out: “Shut up, shut _up_ , and _shut up_ again!” Anger reaches its peak astonishingly quickly as the jeering voices of his teammates goad him to (what John assumes to be true at least) chin them all. Why had he wanted this again? The first moment his team spares him a modicum of acknowledgment out of the field, they have to do it when he’s up to his ears in confusion, choking concern, arousal, a good bit of self-loathing, and a borderline-worrying dose of caffeine pumping through his veins with enough vigor to make his hands tremor. John hugs his arms beneath his knees tightly as he remains curled and chaotic.

 

“Wow, who pissed in his grits?” A blur of artificially gray hair murmurs at his right. Griffin, John surmises at the boyish timbre befitting of not a man in their graying stage.

 

“Your ma’.” Says another.

 

“The _fuck_ did you say to me?”

 

“I’ve reached a conclusion!” A boisterous declaration punctually breaks the crackling air grandiloquently, this time the voice is new. John peers up just enough to find a pair of legs clad in dark denim amble towards him before they crouch, granting him the sight of Epiphany Boy’s chocolate face a good few inches from his own. He’s far too cheerful to breathe around John at the moment.

 

“John’s got the hots for a certain _mademoiselle, ne?_ ” Two thick, dark brows wiggle on the exaggeratedly French intonation. “Isn’t that right? You want _les sexy moments_.”

 

“No!” John shoots up to correct the… not entirely incorrect assumption, well…urgh. “I just—I just had a rough night.” He finishes with a slump as he resumes resting his forehead on his knees petulantly. Not _untrue_ …

 

_At all._

 

Not only had he awoken in a belated panic of stymieing blankets resembling a popular Mexican cuisine, but he’d also had it metastasize into full-blown fear amplified by his drowsy state when he’d managed to grow a brain cell and find Sherlock nowhere in sight. Memories of the night before spliced with far-fetched scenarios of what some might call an utterly artful fusillade and he _still didn’t have Sherlock’s digits god damn—_

 

And then physically restraining himself from sprinting down corridors in his search like a madman. Again. So, adamantly reining in patience he didn’t possess, he had made himself walk around in his underwear to avoid booking it to nowhere-in-mind pants-less. Only after he’d shaven, eaten, wizzed twice, shaved, showered and orally sanitized, only then could he dress. Only then could he trod straight to rugby practice, his one endeavor. Point A to point B.

 

Sherlock was a bright young man, fully adept at evading his demise, possibly even exceeded fully adept for the majority of the UK.

 

This has been his deliberately ignorant mantra for 93 minutes.

 

John has managed to avoid stray thoughts of pale eyelids delicately tinted the faintest of purples, salty tear-tracks preceding a quivering chin and soothing or stinging crescents of red in their downwards journey, a formidable gloom of pure wrongness, violated rage that scared even him in its intensity, bloodied fingertips and soft winces, cold hands felt through tightly-knit wool, a solidly mellow embrace as unnamed hysteria flooded his chest and suffocated him quietly, pain blurs, then warmth, and restless rest.

Yes, John has managed.

By the skin of his bloody teeth.

His prize? Misery.

Maybe he ought to be embarrassed, embarrassed that he’d lost his temper so astronomically in front of some bloke he’s been rooming with for…what was it? A few bloody buggering weeks?! But WAIT! Might as well just fantasize about him while we’re at it!

 

John slaps his hands over his face and groans. Ignoring the blocky view of knowing smirks and Mike's surprised eyebrow lift peeking through his fingers as he buries his face in his hands.

 

Then there was the guilt again. Awful, gooey, slithering guilt mucking up his insides. Its cause making his face burn in shame that has nothing and everything to do with Epiphany Boy’s (Dante’s, he’s Dante. Quarterback Dante arriving on time and actively dressing in uniform _like-John-was-supposed-to-be Dante_.) query.

 

His preceding dreams to this miniature meltdown where nothing short of alarming. At first, he’d been floating at the sweetly happy little sensation in his chest that usually blossomed and hovered around him all day after his brain decided to reward him for his bright mindset and surroundings in the realm of dreams.

 

But there’s another notable notion, dreams lead way to the subconscious. Everyone knew that. John’s deliberately obtuse section of gray matter that usually held revelations about his sister and her ‘best friends’ having sleepovers on his bed all summer while he was at summer camp, all bloody summer—and, well, the like of all things he deemed too mentally degrading to mull over. That section of his brain was being suspiciously silent for all the turmoil roiling through him and wringing him dry.

 

At first, he’d brushed it off on Sherlock appearing…honestly, a bit androgynous.

 

Sherlock would stand in that compact dormitory surrounded by the substantial clutter of his aspirations, precarious stacks of knowledge evincing of sleepless nights, or sleep forgotten. Cutting a strict figure in the muted, warm light of a setting sun as he faced the meringue-painted skyline head-on. He was lithe elegance, sharp shoulders and almost… delicate in his deft, requisite build. Somehow, abstruse and intricate, complicated and twisted in an airily-crafted sort of way. No bullheaded superego critical to his very existence like those John found himself acquainted with on the daily. Sherlock was just kind of…there. No expectations for acceptance or understanding, no humble requirements asked of his equals or a necessitation for a simple warmth of companionship found in another human being. Nothing.

 

It makes a somber little ache draw out in John’s chest, constricts it tight for a second too long, as he attempts to envision himself in such solitude. The loneliness seems as suffocating as the silence Sherlock has possibly endured for months or—who knows, years now?

Nevertheless, he would look far too soft in the eyes for a boy who studied like he expected to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders by next week. (The boy must have extremely strict parents.)

 

But it isn’t that, Sherlock wields a contrition balky in the face of the prosaic enjoyments of an everyday walker. A pure yearn to simply know for the sake of it. A distraction in a drive. His perspective and approach may speak of a brazen regard for academics which may... say in the future, pave way for a yearn to evaluate and reckon social sciences, but he would appear clueless to what makes a friend a friend. His blatant disregard for social cues under the guise of them restricting genius, but what he deems trivialities allotted an implication of what wouldn’t be. It was an innocence that failed to be noticed past an initially unprecedented precocity.

 

But he held it with a certain grace John had yet to understand. An overt maturity, a prevenient wisdom that exceeded his span of experience (theorized entirely on Sherlock’s adamant distaste for the front door before dark).

 

Maybe he needed it.

 

And then there was that small, nearly-there smile that curled Sherlock’s full lips in quiet surprise whenever John asserted his care in the shape of a careful squeeze on the shoulder, an exasperated reminder of essential sustenance, or a duly-owed complement.

 

And then he’d speak. All traces of femininity were officially vanquished beneath a fluent baritone. Shameless in its own right in more ways than one…

 

John grimaces in the real at the double-entendre as his face approaches worrying temperatures.

 

So.

 

Not straight.

 

All right, then.

 

John was handling this remarkably well, considering most men apparently lose both their balls and their marbles after realizing they would do a bloke. Should he go to church, eat a steak, maybe cry a bit?

 

Well, he could also be fantasizing about a man, his man friend, man roommate, and a dead man…

 

As such, concern overrides as always, leaving him feeling a little dizzy. Yes. Despite his untimely sexuality crisis, John remains loyal and vital to the end. Maybe Mummy was right, his virtue will be the death of him someday.

 

John has officially snapped.

 

“John, where are you going! Practice starts now! We need you on blindside flanker!”

 

Slipping his jeans back on with a decisive, awkward hip-wiggle, John barks back at Mike, “Get Anderson to fill in!” trying to calmly tie the laces on his ratty Chuck Taylor’s but muttering ‘fuck it’ before simply stuffing them in on either side of his feet.

 

“Why?” Mike’s expression contorts into one of incredulous shock as his eyes dart over their teammates and back to him in rapid looks of confusion. They finally steady on John as he blurts out, “He isn’t even here… Where are you going anyways?!”

 

“Homeroom!”

 

Mike’s eyes just about bug out of his head. “Why?!”

 

“I forgot my—uh—you guys come up with something good for Cockroach, yeah?” John calls back distractedly as he hauls his bookbag over his jumper-clad shoulder and heads for the metal swingin doors aged with rust and a truly poor paint job.

 

“Aye aye, Captain!” Salutes Dante with a sardonic lift of his brow before swiveling back to the others, his hand raised like an enthused kindergartener. “I call blindside flanker!”

 

“Shut it, Dante!” Mike hisses urgently, then glares beseechingly back at John. “John, you’ve been waiting for this position for, like, years?! Are you insane?!”

 

“Obviously!” John back-peddles for the door with an awkward little jog, mind simultaneously set and a race.

 

“JOHN!—“

 

The metallic clang of decade-worn handy-work of a heavy door smothers whatever heckling laid afoot. Great, now Sherlock and himself were dead men.

 

With that thought, John exits into the main corridor and pounds down the cement to homeroom. Before a figure stumbles out of a hallway up ahead of him with a clatter, John barely manages not to graze them as he propels himself off the wall above their crouching figure and over them while they move to pick up their clipboard.

 

“What the—Oi! No running in the HALLWAY, DUMBASSES!”

 

The booming voice hardly registers, but he manages a sheepish “S’cuse me coach!”

 

“Wait—Watson?!”

 

“Uh—no!”

 

John promptly cuts left and out of sight, this time sure to keep his steps light and soundless as his they grow in speed down the vacant hall and to homeroom.

 

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

 

 

 

A natural blonde, affinity for sad blue eyes and dark espies, pet peeves: loud eaters, pastels, and bowties. Mother deceased, graying from stress, THC addict. Clinically depressed, a distant daughter in the result of teenage pregnancy currently under her contemptuous parents care, pro-lifer, suicidal in a few months. CBD addiction, preferred dosage through edible gummy and/or syrup in herb tea. Guitarist, overly emotional creature, life-span fleeting if the long-distance relationship with unfaithful beau continues. Discreet opiate withdrawal, nasty too, not the first time, broken knuckles, splinters, broken closet doors, anger issues but refuses to seek therapy due to—due to—

 

With a silent, shuddering gasp, Sherlock covers his frenetically flickering eyes as they scan the multitudinous gatherings of equally, rapidly fluctuating people in their varying prominence in homeroom. All existing against his will it seems. Hundreds, everywhere, attached to more, he can see the people the people know despite their absence, and then some. His eyes remain searching and blinking rapidly even as they’re concealed from the fluorescent lighting by his trembling hands. As much as he’d adore fleeing to the silence of his dorm, he remains stubbornly seated in this static sea of sensory input as it threatens to consume him, threatens to strip him of a life past closed doors and into more. _Oh, how he needs more than this._

 

Sherlock needs to surpass this. ‘This’ being why he agreed to leave the serenity and cherry-wood warmth that is his home’s library in the first place. So far away now, the memorized creaks of waxed, wood flooring hidden by plush rope-carpet that peeked between his pale, bony toes, fat raindrops pattering against a rattling window-frame, vast damp fields of damp, crisp green, miles visible from the musty attic where he would read beneath the sill. Rich, red fur is long, slack and patient beneath his curious fingers, a vital multitask of read and pet, loyalty. Falling in love with solitude, finding a freedom like no other in the perilousness of his existence. Yet wittily poetic, pastel post-it notes stuck in the books held in the fickle but prominent eye of his focus, placed there by none other than his mother. She always knew, always understood. Devoutly praised and given synchronicity graced by a simplistic cross in her study.

 

Vivid, abstract geometries painting uninvited grasshopper’s bodies while they systematically cricked on sturdy bookshelves in dissonant harmony a few feet away, father’s soft-but-sure grand piano routinely beckoning him to join in light invitation with his own equally soft violin duet. Le Parfum des Fleurs. A mutual peace, profusely bleeding safety. Home. Home. Breathe slower. _But if I do I’ll live to walk out of here and witness more seizing failure. More panic as a torrential downpour of lifetimes and lives beyond them relentlessly rape me of my focus until I can’t hear. Can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t—_

 

“All righty, so beta carotene and nicotine cause intracerebral hemorrhages in high doses.” A mousy girl asserts and thumbs her pointy nose in an oily fidget from the preceding seat in front of him.

 

“Totally.” Shaggy replies and munches raucously on a perfectly innocent carrot stick.

 

“So, the topic of your essay is… what? Don’t survive off a diet of carrot cake and cigarettes no matter how bad your breakup is?”

 

“yep.”

 

An act of pure mercy and slight, selfish need for distraction, Sherlock speaks.

 

“Pardon, but I couldn’t help but notice your grave error concerning beta carotene and nicotine. As high dosages of both play devil’s advocate for an amplified chance of cancer. Prostate and lung being most prominent in this case.” His voice shakes, hard. He coughs approximately four times in the midst of his opener, still sounds coherent and far more articulate than most would manage in his state. Still, embarrassment engulfs whatever minute flicker of pride ignites like an oil spill.

 

The head of dark hair, nearly identical in appearance to Cujo (Sherlock shivers), whips around and then up to the ascending row behind him. Thinly groomed eyebrows furrow up at him in apparent surprise and grave exhaustion. His female counterpart mimics his direction of sight and onto him.

 

“No, it doesn’t.” Is the dog’s reply.

 

Sherlock manages to rub his fingers roughly across his forehead, then holds them out in an imploring manner, feeling his lips tighten into a grim line. Even as slight joy and relief ebb in his chest at the response, he’s ecstatic to put on a show of composure and surety. Practice makes adequate. The thrumming anxiety of constant sensory input that hosted the lack of distraction when in public and being wholly bombarded by unwanted data still has yet to be conquered. This will do for the time being. _Please heed your nature and last, you evasive inbred_.

 

“Yes, yes it most definitely does.” Sherlock drawls back, in turn, allowing a tidbit of sympathy to seep into his tone. It is at least a quarter honest. As Cujo had probably already printed out the paper and couldn’t make it back to the main office in time to print out another one delineating an actual, accurate point. Denial was a prompting thing.

 

“Wow, do you need a napkin?” Cujo squints, looking concerned as he tilts his head. “Because that’s an awful lot of bullshit coming out of your mouth.”

 

Oh, what an utter _child_. Sherlock feels terribly better already. “In a U.S CARET study, roughly 18,000 smokers and asbestos workers were regularly ingesting 30 milligrams of beta carotene supplements for four years, and had been effectively linked to a 28% higher risk of lung cancer.” Sherlock leans forward and onto his elbows to regard the overgrown brat from his rightfully elevated seating.  “Oh, yes, and alcohol spliced with high dosages of beta-carotene cause intracerebral hemorrhages. What does that tell your doltish, little, hungover denial?”

 

“That you’re a cock.” It says blandly, calmly looks away, then turns abruptly back around to throw a crumpled ball of paper at Sherlock’s face with startling fierceness. Making him jerk back in surprise for a moment, the quick movement causing his shoulder blades to ache.

 

It doesn’t even come close to hitting its mark, instead just floating pathetically down to the carpeted floor after barely making it half-way.

 

Sherlock sits back down and turns away to observe the meek CBD addict to Cujo’s right as he turns back to regard her with a pained glare of warning. Sherlock daintily twirls a lead pencil between his fingers after he blocks most peripheral sight onto her with the sides of his hood. Concluding an estimate of approximately ten more minutes of sufferable exposure before he leaves. (Teacher’s late and can’t get everyone to shut their gobs yet. Probably fucking the TA). And stately decides that people really are worse in person as he does so.

 

‘BANG!’

 

Sherlock’s last pencil falls with a quiet clatter, rolls to the edge of his desk, and finally falls to the point of no return. Sherlock’s head pops up to glare at the culprit responsible.

 

And while the slam of the heavy steel door startles the room for a moment, it’s only minutely, before they all recognize a fellow student in a relatable tizzy of his own, and murmur on simultaneously in a rush of resumed white noise as they were all far too busy to stare.

 

Although Sherlock wasn’t. “…John?” He questions quietly to himself with a frown at the figure as it scanned the aisles frantically. More or less impersonating a lost puppy with separation anxiety after wrestling off its dogsitter's leash to aimlessly search for its owner… “Oh, Redbeard…” He whispers before swallowing tightly. Confusion smothering nostalgia as he observes his roommate’s body language with an I’m-grateful-you’re-distressed-instead sort of edge. It could be rude, but Sherlock is too far past caring at the moment, instead reveling in the interruption of his now-descending disquiet. John is a common variable. Go on. Wonder.

 

Stiff posture, jittery dominant hand, nervous, panting, exerted—why? Oh, rugby practice? No, he ran here seeing as practice started before homeroom, idiot. Why? Haphazardly dressed… not one to sleep in, though, no matter his sleep deprivation. Ran from rugby practice? Surely laps weren’t as horrendous as everyone put them off to be—wasn’t that counterproductive— never mind. Concern crinkles John’s expression so severely Sherlock can see it from the seventh row up. Has someone died? No, not likely, why would he be in homeroom? John’s best mates had a higher chance of meeting up and being around him in far more… according to surroundings befitting of his exerting hobby.

 

Could he—no… But chances would dictate that as a notable possibility given yesterday's happenings. And Sherlock, as a man of science, mustn’t ignore such data. And _distract me_.

 

In a breathtaking show of adherent dignity for hypothesizing, Sherlock raises his hand in a hesitant wave.

 

Then is suddenly far more unsure than he initially found himself. And promptly shoots his hand back into his lap. No, no, no, no what if John is angry? Alarm shoots through his spine and coils like wire through the vertebrates. Had John been awake while Sherlock was awake and noticed him being what most would label as creepy while he was only experiencing a slight malfunction in his mobility?  But he…does not appear angry, nor particularly embarrassed. Just helplessly worried and nearly panicked, now. Not a threat.

 

A sigh of relief escapes him. With a brief shake of his head, Sherlock turns back to his notebook and rips out a blank piece of paper, reaches over to borrow his neighbor’s sharpie stealthily. And scribbles across it with sharp, bold efficiency before holding the sign above him.

 

_‘Hello.’_ He slightly waves the note in careful greeting, still mindful of his injuries. Nor thinking much of it at first, as he had already formulated a semblance of self-possession and four plans to rein in any physical evidence of stray observations concerning this morning’s epidemic. He was still curious on as to how John’s developmental milestones accredited to his infinite ethereality without the insanity of a belief that generally influenced people to be so un-people-like, after all. And intends to go about his scientific endeavor in a strictly clinical manner. Sherlock wasn’t _losing_.

 

But then John’s face looks positively elated in his relief the moment his train of sight lands on Sherlock’s childish sign.

The odd sight results in an alarming, searing pang lurching in his chest and bottoming out his stomach. Sherlock stutters in his beckoning at the increased unease in his chest cavity, allowing the sign to lower just a bit before abruptly slamming it down onto the pale surface of the woodwork in front of him with a quiet crackle and _‘smak’_. A creeping fear makes him feel far colder than his cotton hoodie should allow, even in the blasted air conditioning the university insists on preserving its students with like raw meat.

 

That…that was rather intense.

 

_Am I dying?_ Sherlock thinks a little hysterically as he slowly scrubs his still, infuriatingly-quivering hands down his face. Evading his view of the boy’s rapidly approaching figure as he glowers down at his desk instead, the quickly sousing sensation of indignation and faint fear doesn’t exactly consume the entire room’s distractions though. Pity.

 

He knew such affiliations were terminal. Just… _not in such a literal sense._

 

A muted clatter of books held in a polyester book-bag to his right shatter his much-needed stupor. Another, louder thump completing the segue as someone lands far too casually beside him. Oh, that must have hurt terribly on these unforgiving seats, he thinks unconsciously as he hunches over his desk a little more upon the disruption, purely startled is all.

 

“So, I see you aren’t dead!” John chirps at the indisputable evidence of his ridiculous conversation opener sitting right in front of him. His arm comes up to rest on the ongoing seating behind Sherlock’s shoulders with a truly ridiculous smile. Although Sherlock isn’t so sure he won’t be dead for much longer if his thorax continues to prank him so cruelly.

 

“Of course I’m not dead, why would I be dead?” Sherlock questions a little dazedly when the strangeness of the prompt finally rears its strange head.

 

John opens his mouth, his lips twitching around vowels yet to be granted a breath, and clicks his mouth closed again. “Uh—I, um, I don’t know.”

 

Sherlock stares at him with the beginnings of a squint. Unabashed as the silence stretches into the background static of the room.

 

“Hey,” John blinks at him before gaining a furrow to his brow, appearing to see him clearly for the first time, “are you feeling all right?”

 

Yes. Maybe. No, not particularly. Thank you, John, how thoughtful. But, “Why?"

 

“What do you mean ‘why’?” John replies and leans notably closer, eyeing him in poorly obscured alarm. Sherlock leans back a little to maintain the aftereffects of his minor conniption. “Jesus, Sherlock. You’re as pale as the damn chalkboard.”

 

“I believe the correct term is ‘dry erase board’. And I mean:” Sherlock intones and forces himself to straighten up, curiosity blessedly piques past the buzzing hum of diluting anxiousness, oh his chest is still tight. Discreetly coughing past it with an impromptu inhale, he flicks his eyes over John with animated interest, genuine this time. He wants to. “Why are you attending homeroom when your attendance is prospectively taken when you attend your classes to grant you time for rugby practice? Much like the rest of your teammates.”

 

“Oh, well—you know—“ John begins, looking a tad perturbed beneath the scrutiny as his eyes try to make aborted contact with Sherlock’s a few times, his mouth set in an abashed grimace as he gulps in visible discomfort.

 

“Shut up, don’t tell me.”

 

“Wait—What? But you asked me to—“

 

“Yes, yes, now shush.” Sherlock interrupts him and sets his fingers in front of his lips while his gaze grows shrewd.

 

“Girlfriend.”

 

“Uh,” John drawls and frowns for a moment before his brows twitch up in wide-eyed panic. “No, wait—”

 

“Chances are admittedly slim given your tight timeframe and still-manifesting hobbies. Nonetheless, you’ve most likely grown bored of your self-imposed ostracizing due to a fallacious theory of cliques being impervious to inviting another member. Though this isn’t secondary school, and they’re all far too inebriated to keep count of whoever decides to jump in anyways. Main factor being, you’ve grown attached to someone in the little hours of free time you’ve been spared, so attached in fact you would ditch your favorite pastime and second aspired scholarship to sprint down the corridors like a madman in search of this person. Not to mention your consternated expression that could trick anyone into believing you had just witnessed your family be burned alive…”

 

Sherlock pauses with an indifferent hum, even as unnamed bitterness spikes in his gut and curls his mouth into a scowl. “Romanticism must play a role, it always does. Heteronormative bliss goes quite far and the majority of the patriarch can never hope to up its counterpart at this rate. No matter their surety.”

 

With a fairly derisive noise of repulsion, he rolls his neck to glower towards the front of the room and mutters acidly. “Hedonistic morons, all playing a never-ending game of Blind Man’s Buff.”

 

John’s expression is one of a man who’s been bowled over by a stampede of raging football players. Funny thing is, Sherlock would know it quite well, making him feel a small ripple of triumph and alarm. “I—I’m sorry? I—“

 

“And no, I can’t help you find your dear if that’s what you were hoping to achieve by seeking me out.” Sherlock polishes off with a condescending smile before whipping away to piece together how CBD girl managed to sneak four cats into her dorm. What an elucidating conversation this has been. Oh, that motion was notably painful. No whipping, please, John.

 

“What, no, you idiot,” Sherlock swivels back indignantly at the honorific (and, once more, ouch.), John rolls his eyes before continuing. “I was looking for you.”

 

The sudden searing sensation returns, but it leaves him feeling a small, inspired warmth that typically accompanies reaching a solution, in lieu of earlier’s tangent cringe. He blinks. Blinks again.

 

“Now, that, I don’t believe.” Sherlock regains his composure nonetheless, as he mouths over the words slowly, giving a deliberate peer at John through his bangs and an unimpressed tilt of his head. The uncharacteristic action seems entirely appropriate for whatever worthless reason, but Sherlock feels it properly conveys the unmoved veneer he so fancies.

 

John’s eyes widen fractionally, sucking in a sharp breath before he begins to choke. No worries, though, as he subsequently gathers himself with a few sound thumps to his sternum and rather vicious _ahems_. Sherlock looks on with a progressively rising eyebrow, sliding his half-empty water bottle over to the hacking boy with the tips of his fingers. The motion is slightly hindered by a small sea of crackling bitcoin paraphernalia deep enough to be worthy of a proud, chartist tear.

 

John nods his thanks and smiles before taking a couple rough sips in between his coughs. Inhales deeply through his nose, and sets a tired stare on Sherlock through tear-rimmed eyes. The emotion such an expression was usually meant to express makes Sherlock shift in his seat restlessly. At least he finally received his much-needed distraction.

 

“Mind if I borrow your phone?” John asks tersely, a set determination singeing away any of the previous fatigue caused by his inability to not choke on his own saliva.

 

“Of course—“ Sherlock begins in a light tone implying an imminent affirmative before turning the request down with the final two droned words, “I do.”

 

The thin corner of John’s lips twitches wryly in time with a blond eyebrow. A convoluted contradiction hinting at a perplexing, nonplussed amusement. Why—Why in this godforsaken world of impatient, insufferable bastards did this boy seem to be the one, freakish, half-way-there exception?

 

“Look,” John rolls his head back to stare at the ceiling beseechingly as he rests his elbows atop the table in front of him to rub his fingers over his pursed mouth harshly. Then turns to Sherlock in a snap of a calm gesture of two imploring hands and a shrug, as if to say ‘that’s all.’. “I’d just like to be able to call you next time you decide to run off at a moment's notice—”

 

Sherlock feels colder. “How did you know I ran off—“

 

“—because I happen to find shooting off to god-knows-where after nearly giving your friend a heart attack rather cruel—wait. You ran away?” John begins to look around a 4/126th  as panicked as Sherlock feels. “Why would you run away?”

 

“Cotton.” Sherlock feels his right eye tic violently as his mind’s eye is assaulted by copious imagery.

 

“What?”

 

“Cephalexin!” Sherlock jumps to correct too loudly, earning a few brief glares, he shoots them ones in return as he whips back to John with a tight set to his teeth and necessary gesturing. “monohydrate, performed an experiment concerning necessitated temp required for flammability in unusually moist settings. I’d forgotten to extinguish the Bunsen burner yesterday evening. Remembered, panicked and—ah, ran.” He concludes his verbal fusillade with a nanoscale wilt and avoids John’s inquisitive yet dimly confused gaze. “Nothing happened, luckily.”

 

“Cephalexin, water, and fire? Why would you…” John shoots his knees a wholly lost look before shaking his head and regarding him once more. “Okay, whatever. _Nerd.”_ The poorly whispered title earns John a glare which very well may have reflected the fires of hell. “Uh, Glad I didn’t scare you off, then, I’ve heard I’m a bit of a kicker.” Sherlock’s eyes narrow in consideration of who, exactly, John may have heard that from. “But we’re getting off topic.” A knowing, accusatory grin is aimed Sherlock’s way on the final sentence. “Hand it over.”

 

“What? The cephalexin has evaporated into nothingness, so sorry to say. And why do you need it, have you contracted mastitis, mother hen?”

 

John bites the inside of his cheek as he holds Sherlock’s tiredly incensed glare, then nods slowly. “…ew.”

 

Sherlock shrugs, a cautious roll of shoulders that still derive a nanoscale wince, making John squint weirdly. “Well, if you truly need some there’s a nifty pharmacy just down Overbearing Lane.”

 

John chuckles tightly as his eyes bore into Sherlock’s own. If he kept that up Sherlock may just punch him for evoking even a diminutive yearn to submit beneath such an intense stare. John’s gaze softens, as his eyes stray to the prematurely removed scabs Sherlock had ripped off that morning before meeting his eyes once more, now lightly coagulated and less prominent. Though John’s eyes are still a stern emollient. Concernedly coy. “Just give me your damned phone.”

 

Sherlock holds it steady. “Why should I?”

 

John’s answer is as punctual as his smirk. “So I can text you during maths.” A smug lift of his eyebrows only adds insult to jibe. “Obviously.”

 

Sherlock cocks his head as his pale eyes narrow in glacial consideration. “…would I get to text you in turn?”

 

“What? Uh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean—“ John stutters, seeming to have expected more resistance. But smoothens over a second later. “of course, of course, you can. Anytime you need to—want to. ”

 

That seems fair. Sherlock offers his hand. John rolls his eyes in a gold-metal worthy show of I’m-fond(insane)-and-annoyed, but hands Sherlock his flip-phone. Sherlock rolls it along the line of his palm as the engraved metal casing glimmers up at him.

 

“Are you quite sure you’re all right—“

 

“Ah, so your sister is a lesbian.”

 

“Ah—“  John clicks his tongue at the clinical no-nonsense gaze interrupting whatever other concerns he harbored, but corrects Sherlock reluctantly, “ _The_ lesbian, actually. The engravings are a bit obvious, aren’t they?”

 

“Yes, so, Clara. They’ve separated recently, I’m guessing.” Sherlock feels his eyes go half-lidded as he observes the device idly. Then slightly widen as he makes a small ‘ah.’ of realization. “Drinking, that’s why your face becomes twitchy and irritable when you catch sight of the phone’s backside after getting tackled one too many times at rugby practice. Of course. And your…oh.” Yes, the snapping to attention at a masculine voice, conditioning, introduction to alcohol influences, like-father-like-sister, betrayal. “Oh.”

 

Thankfully, John is heedless of his revelation. That’s… good. A good thing. Yes. Right? Well, relatively speaking—

 

“Drinking…” John looks a bit dazed so Sherlock blinks for him. It’s quite nice. “How could you possibly know about the drinking?”

 

“Brittle marks surround the charging compartment, evincing of shaking hands and discombobulated mechanics. Common in alcoholics determined to keep a full battery to last the next day.” Sherlock punches John’s number into his own phone with an impressive multitask of text and sip. _Don’t dwell._

 

He sees John slowly turn away to purse his lips and lift his eyebrows. Looking a good bit less stunned than he had the first time, thankfully (the insolent boy hadn’t even thought it vital enough to remind Sherlock his lips had remained painted afterward. Only until John had dissolved into cackling for the tenth time that day had Sherlock thought to look in a mirror) but he still smiles with his eyes in a futile attempt at repressing his lauding gush. Sherlock’s chest constricts from the familiar oddity of it. Does he have a will?

 

“That really is amazing.” John’s honey-coated muse sounds far away. “It almost seems unnatural. But still, why the hell didn’t I think of that?”

 

Unable to completely hide a pleased smile, Sherlock holds John’s phone back out to him and has to look away, biting his lips over his teeth with a small smirk and shake of his head. And says, “I had my suspicions. “ as excess data runs through his mind in a comfortable, background, ceremonious buzz. Monochrome. Steady, steadily fluctuating in small waves of yes and no. Finally. Clinical factors of creeping roots straining through undiscovered but currently, graciously predictable soil.

 

“Did you, now?” John breaks it, apparently pleased to continue pursuing how Sherlock had read his sister’s life like a book. Like a phone? And Sherlock was supposed to be extramundane, hm?

 

“Yes.” I _assumed you resented her due to her sexual preferences and by the clipped tone you used on the phone when she called to see if you had made it safely to university. Heard it before I arrived back at my dorm after you had touched my shoulder and agreed to room with me. Even hearing the aggrieved, irate tone through the door made me apprehensive of the day you’d snip it at me. I waited until you hung up to enter. It was only polite._

 

“There were numerous possibilities concerning a possible rivalry or perhaps a flux in—ah, parental figures. Inherited axioms, mercurial a-grades and such."

 

“…I’m not particularly sure of what an axiom is, but I’ll take your word for it.” John reclines with a shrug, his left arm still draped along the pew behind Sherlock, his sprint appearing to catch up with him. Or sensing reluctance on Sherlock’s part to continue.

 

Sherlock blinks. Blinks again. That was…new. Trusting, in a way, as well. People generally attempted to poke holes in whatever solid logic he relays to them in an act of OCD or pity. Futile, yes. Fondly relenting? Not a snowball’s chance in eternal damnation.

 

“Thank you, John.” Sherlock murmurs, after a moment, feeling and sounding a tad too sincere for his taste. Leans back a little. And in all likelihood, it was against his will. But to avoid looking strange or repulsed by shooting up and away. Sherlock remains slightly reclined, careful to keep his back from coming in contact with John’s arm, but it’s enough, warmth emanates from the limb and through his hoodie.

 

He sees John glance sharply at him from the corner of his eye with a frown. Looking him up and down as Sherlock keeps himself outwardly unassuming and a bit slouched. What? He’s seen fellow students, both platonic and not in this position. It isn’t terribly stiff either.

 

“Yeah, you’re welcome...” John finally manages and works his throat, nor does he remove his arm. Just when Sherlock thought he had gotten too strange…

 

“Oh.” Sherlock abruptly remembers aurally with a blink. “And I’ll need you to leave me alone for roughly the next twenty-some hours.”

 

John is silent for a moment. “Okay…” He begins, a question already in the air. “But may I ask why?”

 

“Sure.” Answers Sherlock, duly and halfway invested in sorting through his paraphernalia after he received John’s tentative oath.

 

A brief, boyish laugh sounds soft yet bright at Sherlock’s side over the muted chaos of the room. “Uhm, all right. Why do you want me to leave you be for the next twenty-some hours? That might be a little hard considering we, you know, _share a dorm_?”

 

“Just don’t speak to me, then.” A cautious shrug rolls Sherlock tender shoulders and back while shifts through this week's homework he'd finished last week. Mmm China banning banks from trading bitcoin was notably wise noting their nation’s relative ennui. “I don’t speak for days on end at times, surely you can manage it for two days. Maybe work up a vendetta of silence in retaliation for whatever insecurity my silence predominately evokes.”

 

“Sherlock, you talk to me all the time.”

 

The rustling papers in Sherlock’s hands involuntarily lower for the second time that morning. “…I do?”

 

“Yes?” John holds out the s, a disbelieving clinch at the corners of his eyes as he grins unsurely.

 

How strange, he hadn’t even noticed these so called ‘all the time’ convos. Who starts them? Who ends them? What are they about? Has he uncovered some of his deepest, darkest secrets beyond his notice? Oh, has _John_?  It’s a little more than just concerning for a person who prides themselves in noticing everything. Noticing everything against his will until it drives him mad and this had somehow slipped his attention—“What do I say?”

 

“The hell if I know,” John remarks, tone snark but sounding a fond kind of resigned one would aim at a disobedient pet. But lightens at Sherlock’s look. “So, why are you giving me the silent treatment?” John asks, his honest curiosity bracketing two small lines between his eyebrows.

 

“Hand me a pencil.”

 

A flicker of surprise pauses John, but John’s been taking lessons in learning to not question Sherlock’s unnatural nature. Now only habitual wraiths of John’s sanity remain.

 

“Say please.” John meets his demand with an impromptu request as polite as his admonishing smile, still fatally interested nonetheless.

Sherlock sighs, chagrin, and reflexively impatient.

 

“ _Please oh please_ hand me the pencil you undoubtedly insist on chewing like a toddler during maths.”

 

“Better.” John grins and hands him a ratty, pink pencil with a fuzzy top he’d found on the floor. Sherlock takes it with a politely grateful nod, the most determined air of professionalism he can muster, and sets to work.

 

_‘Due to unfortunate events, I’ve been required to exercise an interval in our talkative regimen to soothe minor fatigue involuntarily derived from a haplessly daft requiem. Your assent will be met kindly._

 

_Sign here __________________’_

 

John takes the slightly torn notebook paper and reads the conservative scrawl on it for a clearly unnecessary period of time, eyes narrowing in deep concentration as he goes over it gravely like he is proofreading his mother’s will instead of an immature jotting Sherlock hadn’t done since his primary years. Upon finishing with a weary, salaried nod that Sherlock could appreciate in its grace, John says. “I’ll have to speak with my lawyer first.”

 

Sherlock dips his head in the ghost of a trademark coax seen in boisterous car insurance advertisements. “I can assure you, it’s a deal like no other.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure…” John intersects smoothly and slicks his damp hair back with a hand. Looking a true white-collar if there ever was one. “It’s just that my lawyer happens to have a notably higher percentage on the chart of chance to understand one bloody word on this stupidly articulate contract.” And folds the paper, tucking it away in his pocket. “We’ll have to go over it later.”

 

John looks up, a cajoling curl of his lip with as blue eyes make the crisp, fluorescent light sheathing the room in its cold glare from above look warm. Settling back against the pew and scooting an inch closer, John suggests and tilts his head up at him. “Or you could speak English?”

 

“...I’m a supplier, not a translator.” He replies slowly, brows caught in a musing frown as he feels his eyes go far away. Then flicker down to his hands, their pale and willowy spider-structures rested on the rough denim cladding his sharp knees. And finally back to the front of the room as a plain-looking man with two kids and two wives begins to pace the front below them.

 

 

 


End file.
